Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
UlllMAl(
GUIDf TO
AdWords Fifth Edition
• Access more than 1 billion people in 10 minutes
• Double your website traffic overnight
• Build a profitable ad campaign today-from scratch
Pf ARY MAR�HAll MIK( RHOD(� DAYA� TODD TopAdvert.net
What Others Say About the Impact of the Last Editionof This Book
“I’ve used the Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords since the first edition.Transforming a client’s unprofitable AdWords account into a cash cow—
churning out $30 to $35k profits every month. Just scratching the surface ofthe book’s contents.
“This is the best book on AdWords, period. Plus, it’s a dang good book oninternet marketing. Not only can you use it to tap Google’s huge traffic
stream, you’ll also convert the thundering hordes of traffic into buyers andprofits in your pocket. Do what I do—don’t just buy and use it yourself, buy
copies for your friends!”
—ROY FURR, EDITOR, BREAKTHROUGH MARKETING SECRETS, DIRECTMARKETING CONSULTANT
“I’m often asked by peers in my niche how I manage to rank so well insearch engines and not go broke using Google AdWords. There are a couple
of reasons—I’ve been subscribing to Perry Marshall’s newsletters since2003; I’ve read every one of his books; I listen in on all the conference calls
he organizes; and finally, I IMPLEMENT his strategies and tactics.”
“The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords lists for $24.95. Only a fool wouldcontinue to run Google AdWords campaigns and NOT invest in, study, andimplement the ideas in it. And no, you’ll not find an affiliate link to Amazon
here. Just get the book!”
—JER AYLES-AYLER, ADWORDS USER, TRIHOUSE ENTERPRISES, INC.
TopAdvert.net
“I bought this book to learn how to get better results from AdWords for myclients. The advice given is easy to follow, and following up on the results ofyour campaign is exciting. I’ve already seen a huge increase in clickthroughrates for the different customers and campaigns I run. I get far better results
for less money.
“I would recommend reading Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords to anyoneinterested in starting AdWords marketing, or tuning their current campaignsfor better results. On the other hand, I’d like to keep what’s in here a secret.”
—HENRIK HEDBERG, ADWORDS USER
“Naming this the Ultimate Guide is not a fluke. I have been tweaking the hellout of the ads I’m using to lead searchers into my funnel. Over the past fewweeks, I’ve managed to get one of my ads up to just over 7% CTR from a
previous 1 to 2%!”
—BILL PERRY, ADWORDS USER
“I thought I knew it all. I set up an AdWords account and a couple of dayslater I came back to check if I was rich yet. Unfortunately, the only thing thathappened was Google enjoyed free access to my bank account. Luckily thetraffic was not that high so it was just a couple hundred dollars. And I made
no money.
“Frustrated, I went online and did some research. Every forum, article, andblog seemed to be talking about Perry Marshall, so I decided to get Ultimate
Guide to Google AdWords. 30 minutes into reading my mind was blownaway.
“Next, my Quality Score went up from an average of two and three to a sixand nine for various keywords. At the same time, my cost-per-click went
down from over $4 to about $0.50.
TopAdvert.net
“The rest is history. Seriously, if you don’t know the stuff in this book don’teven think of AdWords. This is THE guide.”
—JEAN PAUL ESSIAM, ADWORDS USER
TopAdvert.net
TopAdvert.net
Entrepreneur Press, PublisherCover Design: Andrew WelyczkoProduction and Composition: Eliot House Productions
© 2017 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc.All rights reserved.Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the1976 United States Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests forpermission or further information should be addressed to the Business Products Division, EntrepreneurMedia Inc.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subjectmatter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal,accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, theservices of a competent professional person should be sought.
ebook ISBN: 978-1-61308-371-0
TopAdvert.net
Contents
PREFACE
Wait! Before You Read This Book . . .If You’re a Rank BeginnerIf You’re a Veteran Pay-Per-Click MarketerAdvanced Material for Go-Getter Google Advertisers
CHAPTER 1
Chisel Your Way In: Frank Talk about the GoogleAdWords of Today
The Three Niche Domination Strategies of Google Adwords
CHAPTER 2
How to Force Prospects to Choose Your Site: MakeThem Buy from You, Not Your Competition
Here’s How to Make Sure They Find You and Buy from You—NotSomeone Else
CHAPTER 3
Keywords: AdWords Success Starts HereHow to Find the Most Profitable KeywordsHow to Get the Most from Google’s Keyword PlannerStep Up Your Game Using Keyword Matching OptionsYour Quick Action Summary
TopAdvert.net
CHAPTER 4
How to Write Google Ads: Attract Eyeballs, GetClicks, and Earn Money
Great Headlines: Riveting to Your Customer, Dead Boring to AnyoneElse
Your Ad Text: Where Your Inner Salesman Comes AliveThe “Goldilocks Theory”: Why the Best AdWords Ads Are Never
Over the TopFocusing Your Ads to Save $$$ on ClicksIf the Guys at the Bar Will Buy It, You’ve Got a Winning Ad
CHAPTER 5
Chisel Your Way in with Bionic Google AdsSix Different Versions of One Ad
CHAPTER 6
Ads That Pass the Test: Editorial Guidelines andSplit Testing
Follow the Editorial Guidelines and Keep Google HappyDisapproved AdsSee in Advance How Your Ads Will Look on the Preview PageSystematically Grow Your CTR with Split Testing
CHAPTER 7
Campaign SettingsThe Perfect Settings for a New CampaignMore Settings to Save You Money and Increase ClicksYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 8
The Winning Method the World’s SmartestMarketers Stole from the Wright Brothers
How the Wright Brothers’ Savvy Testing Method Made Them “First
TopAdvert.net
in Flight”People Who Test, Fly. People Who Rely on Brute Force, Die.Marketing Misery: Not Necessary
CHAPTER 9
Vanquish the Thickest Competition with a Killer USPSix Essential Elements of a Power USP
CHAPTER 10
Conversion Tracking: How to Know Where EveryPenny You Spend Is Going
The Four Types of Conversions You’ll Want To TrackHow to Set Up Conversion Tracking the Right WayTake Advantage of AnalyticsYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 11
Landing Pages: Making Powerful First ImpressionsThat Convert
What Is a Landing Page?Maintain the “Scent”The Two People You Need to Keep HappyThe Essential Landing Page ChecklistGive Your Web Developer the Day Off: Create Your Own Landing
PageYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 12
Bidding Strategies: Tools to Keep Your SpendingSmart
Start with Manual BidsWhere Do You Set Bids?Bid Strategies
TopAdvert.net
What Is Smart Bidding?Upping Your Game with Bid AdjustmentsRisky! Beware of Bid StackingYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 13
Supercharge Your Clickthrough Rates with AdExtensions
Ad Extension #1: SitelinksAd Extension #2: Callout ExtensionsAd Extension #3: Structured SnippetsAd Extension #4: Call ExtensionsAd Extension #5: LocationAd Extension #6: PriceAd Extension #7: MessageOther ExtensionsAutomatic ExtensionsYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 14
How to Get Your Ads on Millions of Websites withGoogle’s Display Network
Display vs. SearchIs Google’s Display Network Worth the Effort?Hit the Bull’s-Eye by Carefully Choosing Your TargetAd OptionsThe Display GridDisplay Planner and All the Clever Ways You Can BidSelecting GDN OffersYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 15
Remarketing: The Single Most Profitable OnlineAdvertising Strategy
TopAdvert.net
First, Update Your Privacy PolicyCreate Your CodeHow to Build an “Audience” to Remarket ToHow Long Do I Keep People on My List?How to Create a Remarketing CampaignHow to Write Remarketing Ads That Get Clicks and ConversionsShould You Try Customized Landing Pages?Some Advanced Remarketing TipsYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 16
YouTube Advertising: Billions of Eyeballs forPennies by Tom Breeze
What Works on YouTube?Targeting on YouTubePutting It All TogetherYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 17
Niche Domination, Part 1: Chisel in Where theChiseling Is Easy
Three Signs of an Overlooked NicheThe 80/20 Survey Technique for Hyper-Responsive IntelligenceThe 80/20 ProtocolYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 18
Niche Domination, Part 2: Playing Games You CanWin
The “Working Stiff to $400 Million” Niche Domination StrategyHow Is it Possible That Richard Koch Bats 50 Percent When Most
Venture Capital Firms Are Delighted to Bat 5–10 Percent?Success Through Elimination
TopAdvert.net
CHAPTER 19
“Deep 80/20”: It’s Not What You Think . . . and ICan’t Tell You How Profitable It Is!
Back When I Thought I Understood 80/2080/20 Applies to Just About Everything You Can Measure in a
Business80/20 Isn’t Just Two Groups, i.e., “the 80” and “the 20”There’s an 80/20 Inside Every 80/20!You Can Overlay Multiple 80/20s and Double Your Mojo80/20 Is Why “Peel and Stick” Is So Powerful!Perfectionism Can Get in Your Way!The Myth of the Long TailSome 80/20 Rules of Thumb
CHAPTER 20
How to Get Customers to Eat Out of Your Hand: Getthe Biggest Money from Your Customers WhenYou Give Them Exactly What They Want to Buy
How to Be Sure There’s a More Profitable Market for Your Idea byDeveloping a Product After Your Customers Tell You What TheyWant
What You Learn When This Doesn’t Work the First Time Out
CHAPTER 21
Quality Score: Making Google’s “Bozo Filter” Workfor You
Google Pays You to Be Relevant!What’s Your Quality Score?So What Factors Go into Quality Score?How to Improve Your Quality ScoreThree Myths about Quality ScoreYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 22
TopAdvert.net
Google’s Search Partner Network: Gold Mine orLand Mine?
How to Chisel Your Way in to the Search Partner NetworkYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 23
Impression Share: Get More of the Right Eyeballs toSee Your Offer
How to Find Your Impression Share NumbersHow to Improve Your Impression ShareYou Can See Your Competitors’ Impression Share, TooYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 24
Keep Your Campaigns Purring Like a Kitten: The$1,000-per-Hour Job Most People Don’t Show UpFor
Ongoing Management: ChecksOngoing Management: OptimizingOngoing Management: ExpansionHow to Audit and Diagnose Problems QuicklyYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 25
Creating Your Own Remarketing GridWhat Is a Remarketing Grid?Why Use It?How to Set Up Your Remarketing GridYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 26
Remarketing: Lists for Search Ads (RLSA): TheWorld’s Most Profitable Form of Traffic . . . Now
TopAdvert.net
Available on Google SearchWhat Are Remarketing Lists for Search Ads?Your Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 27
Advanced Campaign Types: Polishing YourCompetitive Edge
Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs)Call-Only CampaignsYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 28
Google’s Display Network: The Greatest TestingPlayground in History
The Power of a Blind Test“Test the Forest” FirstWhich Type of Ad Should I Start With?How to Create Gorgeous AdsHow to Keep Your Ads in Google’s Good GracesGDN Landing PagesAdvanced Bidding on the Display NetworkCustomer MatchGmail AdsYouTubeYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 29
Google Analytics: Know Exactly Where YourVisitors Come From and Where They’re Going
A Million-Dollar Ad Tracking Discovery from My First Big ClientWhat Happens After the Click?First Step: Macro Conversions vs. MicroAssigning Values to Your Goals
TopAdvert.net
How to Get AdWords and Analytics Talking to Each OtherAnalytics RemarketingGoogle Tag Manager (GTM)Your Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 30
Google Shopping Campaigns: A Huge ROI Boost foreCommerce
How to Set Up a Google Shopping CampaignHow to Get Your Google Shopping Campaign Up and RunningBiddingNegative KeywordsGetting AdvancedOngoing Management of Your Shopping CampaignsFeed OptimizationYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 31
AdWords Editor: Your Power Tool for ManagingCampaigns with Ease
Who Is the AdWords Editor For?Your Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 32
AdWords Scripts: Automate the Grunt WorkWhat Are Scripts?Why Use Scripts?How to Set Up a ScriptUseful and Simple Scripts (Freebies!)Your Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 33
AdWords Experiments: Test and Succeed with Little
TopAdvert.net
RiskCampaign Drafts and ExperimentsWhy Use Experiments?How to Set Up Your ExperimentTypes of ExperimentsMeasure Your ResultsRoll It OutYour Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 34
How to Hire the Right AdWords AgencyA Word of Warning Before You OutsourceWhat Payment Model Should You Follow?11 Questions to Ask Before Hiring an AgencyWho Will Have Ownership of Your Account?Your Quick Action Summary
CHAPTER 35
How Email Transforms Those Expensive Clicks intoLong-Term, Profitable Customers
How to Put Personality and Pizzazz into Your Email MarketingPower in the Personal: Six Keys to Email Marketing SuccessWhy We Chose Engineers as an Example for Email MarketingA Medium That Will Never Go AwayOpt-Ins: More Than Just an Email Address?They Can Knock off Your Product, but They Can’t Knock off You
CHAPTER 36
So You Have a Killer Sales Machine. Now What?:The New Army of Next-Generation Marketers
The Improvements Don’t Just Add Up—They Multiply!Expanding into Other Media: Profiting from the Winner-Take-All
PhenomenonAffiliates: The Momentum Kicks In
TopAdvert.net
How to Grind Down Your Competition: A Google Lesson from HanSolo
Google Makes It So EasyNouveau Skin Care Company Gets an Unexpected Turn in
Advertising
CHAPTER 37
Signature VictoriesMega-Victories
About the Authors
Quick-Reference AdWords Glossary
Index
TopAdvert.net
I
Preface
Wait! Before You Read This Book . . .
f you’re brand new to Google AdWords and you’re just getting started,you MUST read this short section first.
And:
If you’ve got years of AdWords experience under your belt or you alreadyown an earlier edition of this book at the end of this introduction, I’ll giveyou shortcuts and page numbers for the advanced, new material in the book.
The first thing you need to do is get your online bonus material atwww.perrymarshall.com/supplement. There, you’ll also find a collectionof supplemental material that I consider vital to this book (because Google isconstantly fussing with things), and you’ll get in line for a series of updatesyou’ll need as Google’s system changes.
OK, now that you’ve done that, let me tell you how to go about learningAdWords. Please listen carefully; pay attention.
IF YOU’RE A RANK BEGINNER . . .There’s an old saying “You can’t learn to ride a bicycle at a seminar,” and itdefinitely applies to AdWords. AdWords and really everything you ever doin direct marketing is hands-on. It’s not theory. It’s real world. It’s the schoolof hard knocks.
About the school-of-hard-knocks part: When AdWords was brand new,
TopAdvert.net
there were lots of inexpensive clicks, and you could find your way by makinglots of cheap mistakes.
Those days are over. Today, that strategy will get you slaughtered.When you open a Google AdWords account, go ahead and enter your
keywords, write some ads, and set some bid prices. It’s OK if you don’treally know what you’re doing; you’ll learn. The first few chapters of thisbook will show you exactly how to do it. But here’s the most important thingof all:
Set a low daily budget, say $5 or $10 per day, to make absolutely surethat your first experience with AdWords is a GOOD one—not a painful one—because:
The worst thing you can do in your new career as a Google advertiser isaccidentally run up $2,500 of clicks that you have no idea how you’re goingto pay for. All advertisers have to go through some trial and error beforethings really come together. There are many assumptions Google will makeabout how to set up your account that are wrong, and if you blindly follow itsmenus, you’ll make some costly mistakes.
Another giant mistake advertisers make is assuming that Google is“benevolent.” Not! And if I had a dollar for every person who told me, “TheGoogle rep called me with some friendly suggestions and . . . well, I lostthousands of dollars,” I’d be a good deal richer. Google does have a GreenBeret team of crackerjack reps who know what they’re doing, but only hugeadvertisers and premium agencies get those guys. Everybody else gets repswho are hustling to meet sales quota. Most Google reps have never spent asingle dollar of their own money buying Google ads, let alone been requiredto make a profit and meet payroll. And once they have your money, you willnever get it back. Sleep with one eye open.
The best thing you can do is enjoy the process of watching those clickscome in and seeing your handiwork produce results.
Then, if you’re hands-on from the word go, everything you read in thisbook will make ten times more sense.
So yes, go ahead and get started. Create your AdWords account, roll upyour sleeves, and jump in.
We recommend you read the first four chapters to get a good overview ofAdWords, direct marketing, and all the strategy behind it.
If you’re just starting out, or you want a refresher, we cover the
TopAdvert.net
fundamentals in Chapters 5 through 11. They’ll give you a fantasticgrounding.
Then when you’re ready to dive into the more advanced material,Chapters 12 to 37 will cover every advanced technique you need to get intothe top 1 percent of all AdWords practitioners.
As you go from one chapter to the next, make changes to your account.You’ll literally be able to see the performance difference in a few hours.
Before you’ve even spent $10 on Google clicks, please make sure you’reusing this book as your guide. If you don’t, you’ll make a slew of commonmistakes and blow a lot of cash that you could have used to grow yourbusiness.
Also, make sure you access the special reports and see the audios andvideos in the Book Bonus member’s area. They’re atwww.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
IF YOU’RE A VETERAN PAY-PER-CLICKMARKETER . . .This is the fifth edition of the Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords. We’veadded new chapters and segments that reflect the sharpest and most currentGoogle strategies. These include:
BiddingYouTube ads (this is a new chapter by a new author)RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads)Advanced campaign typesAdWords ExperimentsMike Rhodes’ Remarketing GridAdWords Scripts (a great way to automate elements of your reportingand ongoing management work)
Plus, we’ve got significant updates on:
Ad extensionsGoogle Display NetworkConversion tracking
TopAdvert.net
Ongoing managementGoogle Analytics and Tag Manager
If you’re a seasoned veteran, if you’ve read the previous editions ofthis book, or if you’re already a pay-per-click ninja, I bet you’ve neverseen these before.
ADVANCED MATERIAL FOR GO-GETTERGOOGLE ADVERTISERSI’ve added new, advanced material at www.perrymarshall.com/supplementfor aggressive marketers, including extended reports and videos for all of theabove current strategies I just named: YouTube advertising, advancedcampaign types, and improved Display Network techniques, as well as USP,“bionic” Google ads, and savvy market selection.
Once you’ve registered for the bonus material, you’ll also receive theregular updates we send out about Google’s ever-changing system.
One last thing: I mince no words. Google is THE benchmark foradvertisers and information providers worldwide. In fact, from the standpointof ordinary people getting things done every single day in the world, Googleis the most trusted brand on the web. If you’re up to Google’s standards,you’re world class.
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. I’m not saying it’s easy. It is not. ButI do promise—it IS rewarding. Make no mistake.
Follow the guidelines in this book, and you’ll be a world-class promoterin your market, your niche, and your chosen profession. I wish you the very,very best of success.
—Perry MarshallChicago, Illinois
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 1
Chisel Your Way InFrank Talk about the Google AdWords of
Today
wo or five or ten years from now, the story of you and all the otherplayers in your market will be exactly like the story of Google vs.
Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Yahoo!, and MSN: a bunch of losers; acouple who turned out sort of OK; and one massive success story.
I want YOU to be the success story. The Alpha Dog.
If you want to get to the meaty stuff fast, don’t skip this. This is not thetypical book intro where someone yammers on about the last three editionsand gushes about all the wonderful souls who were helped along the way.
I’m going to outline a few vital strategies that determine whether YOUsucceed or fail in online marketing and Google AdWords. I’ll conclude withsome frank discussion on what it takes to make AdWords work today. Stickwith me a minute for a brief internet history lesson.
Remember the dotcom bubble? Remember when half the world thoughtJeff Bezos of Amazon was a genius and the other half deemed him a bloodyfool? Do you remember the late ’90s when it was obvious to everybody (OK,almost everybody) that the internet was a Very Big Deal and it was here tostay and the stakes were very, very big?
The internet is not merely another communication medium. As my friend
TopAdvert.net
Tom Hoobyar said, it is a fundamental shift for humanity that’s as importantas the discovery of fire.
The reason the dotcom bubble happened was, investors and entrepreneursalike knew that winning this game would be a very, very big deal.
I remember sometime around 1999–2000, Yahoo! Auctions was trying tomake a go of it. I was selling stuff on eBay, so I tried Yahoo! Auctions, too.They were advertising all over the place, and their fees were lower.
I quickly found out Yahoo! Auctions didn’t have as many buyers. Mystuff didn’t fetch as high a price on Yahoo! as it got on eBay. I didn’t wantsell an item for $17 on Yahoo! if it would fetch $20 on eBay.
As a seller, I wanted to go where the buyers are. Buyers want to go wherethe sellers are. The synergy between buyers and sellers is called the NetworkEffect. The Network Effect says the value of a network is equal to the numberof members squared. So if in 1999 Yahoo! had one million users and eBayhad two million, eBay wasn’t twice as powerful; eBay was four times aspowerful. Nothing Yahoo! might do could overcome eBay’s 4X poweradvantage.
As you know, eBay went on to become the number-one auction site. Arespectable number-two doesn’t even exist today. And unless eBay makessome major, catastrophic mistake, no one will ever be able to displace them—no matter how much money they spend. Someone could spend $100 billiontrying to revive Yahoo! Auctions, and it would never work.
The Network Effect is twice as big a deal on the internet as in the brick-and-mortar world. Why? Because the internet is almost frictionless. Thefrictionless quality of the internet paradoxically introduces a new kind offriction: the nearly effortless dominance of the number-one player over allothers; the other players are at their mercy. If someone tried to revive Yahoo!Auctions, eBay would always be only one click away. So Yahoo! Auctionsdoesn’t stand a chance.
This has everything to do with you and your quest to dominate yourmarket. I will get to that in just a minute. First, a quick story.
In 2002, I went to my first internet marketing conference, KenMcCarthy’s System Seminar. There, I heard Jon Keel speak on pay-per-click(PPC). Jon was my first true inspiration as an online marketer. He devotedmost of his presentation to Overture, which was the dominant PPC service atthe time. It was a total revelation when he explained the dynamics of PPC
TopAdvert.net
and showed us the Overture Keyword tool, an early forerunner of Google’sKeyword Planner tool.
Jon spent a few minutes talking about Google AdWords, which he hadn’tplayed with much yet. I went home and opened my first AdWords account.Within a few days, I knew I’d discovered the most amazing direct-responsemarketing tool in the history of man. A beautiful magic carpet ride began,and the rest, as they say, is history.
By this time, eBay was already the king of online auctions. I understoodthat once they had this position, it would be so hard for anyone to ever steal itaway from them. So while Jon was talking, I raised my hand and asked:
“Jon, is it possible for a pay-per-click engine to become a searchmonopoly sort of like eBay has a monopoly on auctions?”
Jon didn’t know. I had a hunch it was true. But I didn’t know why.This was April 2002. At this time, Google was just yet another player in
the dogfight between MSN, Yahoo!, AltaVista, HotBot, Excite, Infoseek, anda dozen others. At that point, there was no clear winner. They were all justbeginning to move away from the “free” model. Search engine optimization(SEO) was still easy to game.
I personally liked Google much more than the rest, but I was a minority.Many people still didn’t even know what Google was. Nobody at the timedreamed that Google was poised to become the 800-pound gorilla of theinternet.
In those early days of AdWords, I wondered:
In this frictionless world, where every search engine is only one clickaway from any other, only one browser setting away from being thedefault, how is any one search engine going to dominate?
In hindsight, that was a dumb question. Here’s the right question:
If one ________ (search engine, auction site, map, ecommerce store,butcher, baker, candlestick maker) is clearly just a little bit betterthan everyone else, what is going to keep EVERYBODY from clickingover to them and buying from them instead?
And when that fabled tipping point happens, and they get thousands
TopAdvert.net
or millions or billions more dollars in their coffers, what is going tokeep them from re-investing the profits and getting better and betteruntil they are absolutely unbeatable—like eBay?
What Google did next after that conference in 2002 was the thing Icouldn’t quite foresee.
A year later, AdWords hit critical mass. It reached that spot whereeveryone was seeing their competitors’ ads on Google and wanted to knowhow they got there. Google became a gravitational force where affiliatemarketers figured out every word in the whole English language (and mostother languages) was up for sale. The world got sucked in.
Where Overture was clunky and poorly thought out, AdWords waselegant and magnificently executed. Sure, AdWords had its flaws, but it wasfundamentally right. It was a marketer’s dream. During the next five years,Google exploded with breathtaking force. Google fast outpaced Overture as aPPC platform, raking in billions of dollars and going public.
Google, which was a little bit better than all the other search engines,started getting a lot better.
Google Maps became almost dreamlike in its sophistication. Soon, youcould take a virtual tour of anywhere with Street View. Google boughtYouTube, which became the world’s number-two search engine and thedefault place where everyone uploads videos of their kids’ ballet recital.
AdWords started adding features, eventually getting to where almostevery form of targeting you can imagine became possible, no matter howgranular. Local businesses started tuning into Google Maps. Consultants andagencies started selling “I’ll get you listed on Google.”
Add Gmail and Google News and smaller services like Google Scholar (asearch engine for academic books and papers), and Google becomesentrenched, as unbeatable as eBay. The other search engines were and arevastly inferior. You’d have to spend a trillion dollars to unseat Google, andyou would still probably fail.
This “winner-take-all” phenomenon is what the dotcom excitement wasreally all about. Sure, there was a lot of dumb stuff, talking socks andwhatnot. People do dumb stuff when trillions of dollars are on the line. Butthey knew the rewards would be big. The present dominance of Google,Amazon, Apple, and Facebook proves that.
TopAdvert.net
OK, so what does this have to do with you?The winner-take-all phenomenon is just as true at your level and in
your market as it was for Google and eBay. Right this very minute.Especially if you run a pure online business or any business with national orinternational borders.
In my book 80/20 Sales and Marketing, I describe how it’s a law ofnature that 80 percent of the money comes from 20 percent of the customers,80 percent of the sales come from 20 percent of the products, and 80 percentof the cars drive on 20 percent of the roads. 80/20 applies to almosteverything you do in business.
But here’s what I don’t really explain in that book:On the internet, most things aren’t 80/20. They’re 90/10!The web, the “great equalizer,” the leveler of all playing fields, is even
more unequal. 90 percent of the customers use 10 percent of the searchengines. Ninety percent of your traffic comes from 10 percent of your adcampaigns. Ten percent of the advertisers get 90 percent of the traffic.
Winners win BIG on the internet.Losers lose BIG on the internet because it’s so frictionless.Winners rise to the top faster.Online marketing is a blood sport. You are playing for keeps. If you think
Google AdWords is just going to be this little thing that you do, some taskyou delegate to your part-time assistant . . . if you’re going to stick your toein the water and dabble in it . . . if you think you’re just going to spend anhour or two, buy some clicks and get rich . . . .
Then ditch this book right now and go find some other delusion to indulgein.
Because it’s NOT going to work that way.You’re either going to do this right, dominate, and go home with the
spoils, or you’re going to go home with your tail between your legs. You’llbe like the long-extinct Yahoo! Auctions, and the whole thing will be apainful lesson and tax write-off.
This is not some interesting miscellaneous activity that’s going to makeyou a little extra money. This is big.
If you want it to be.Know this going in: if you’re not serious, don’t even start.If you’re in business at all, this is the game you are playing. It is a 90/10
TopAdvert.net
game, and you’re either among the broke wannabe 90 or the opulent 10.There isn’t much of an in-between space. If you’re not one of the top three,you’re toast. And this is not just true on Google. It’s true everywhere on theinternet.
Some may tell you otherwise . . . but they are lying. There’s no lack offlimflam men on the web. So if you want to make a middling living doingmediocre work and getting paid mediocre money, go get a job as a barmaidor security guard. Go babysit a kiosk at the mall where you’re guaranteed thatyou can accost a few dozen people every hour as they walk by.
But if you’re going to play on the internet, you need to pick a game youcan win. And then you need to play for keeps.
It is FAR easier to be number one—and stay there—than it is to benumber four or number five or number ten and fight over the scrapswith all the other losers. As the “number-one AdWords author” for the pastten years, I can assure you that is true.
When you are number one in your market, all the traffic flows your waybecause people make more money sending their traffic to you than they makekeeping it to themselves.
When you are number one in your market, you become the star. Thedefault go-to person that everyone talks about.
When you are number one in your market, you get treated to the bestdeals, approached by the best vendors, offered first right of refusal on the bestjoint ventures, and get the seat of honor at the head table. When you’renumber one in your market, reaching out to an adjacent niche and dominatingthat one, too, becomes easier and easier.
When you’re number ten in your market, you just hope your spouse’ssalary will cover the mortgage and groceries.
On Google AdWords, 2 percent of the advertisers get 50 percent of thetraffic. So you need to decide to be one of the top 10 percent players whoshare 90 percent of the spoils with Google.
Let me explain why this is important and why you can’t ignore Google.Google is THE gold standard. Your ability to buy Google clicks is THE
measure of your sales mojo. It is THE litmus test of your ability to be numberone in your market. Do you have the best sales machine? Can you be numberone? Are you inching up on number one? Are you quickly becoming acontender? Or are you fading away?
TopAdvert.net
Once you know how to do Google AdWords, then your ability to playthere is where you find out exactly how you stack up.
THE THREE NICHE DOMINATION STRATEGIESOF GOOGLE ADWORDS
1. If you can afford to spend even one penny more than all yourcompetitors to buy clicks, then sooner or later you WILL be numberone. This is Jonathan Mizel’s famous “Unlimited Traffic Technique.”When you have the best sales funnel and conversion rates, you geteasy access to all the traffic, not just some of it.
2. If you can’t be the big fish in a big pond, be a big fish in a little pond.This is very big and very important. This goes hand-in-hand with . . .
3. If you can find a little pocket where competition is thinner and youcan dominate, then you can chisel your way in to an overlookedmarket in Google AdWords. (There are millions of them right now,and there always will be!) You can grow from there—even if you’reDavid facing off against Goliath.
Until every single person on Earth who searches Google finds the thingthey are looking to buy, there’s room for you.
I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah Perry, that’s great. I get all that. Butit’s a Catch-22. How can I dominate a market if I can’t get traffic? How can Iget traffic if I haven’t yet figured out how to dominate a market?”
Every single piece of advice you get in the rest of this book falls underone of these three strategies. In the pages to come, Mike Rhodes, BryanTodd, and I are going to take you by the hand and show you how.
Google’s job is to thin the herd. My job is to make you fat.
TopAdvert.net
G
Chapter 2
How to Force Prospects to ChooseYour Site
Make Them Buy from You, Not YourCompetition
oogle gets searched 5.5 billion times every day. That’s 60,000 searchesevery second.
Google can bring thousands of visitors to your website 24 hours a day, 7 daysa week, 365 days a year, whether you’re taking a shower, eating breakfast,driving to work, picking up your kids at school, taking a phone call, sleeping,sitting on the commode, daydreaming, busting your butt to beat a deadline,chasing some customer, typing an email message . . .
And it can all happen on autopilot: 100 percent predictable and completelyconsistent, like clockwork.
Ten or 15 years ago, an impossible dream; today, a reality.And of all the different traffic sources you can buy (we wrote the world’s
most popular book on Facebook advertising, too), Google is the most steady,the most stable, the most predictable. If you want traffic 24/7/365, Google isunmatched.
Just think of the lengths to which we entrepreneurs, business owners, andsales people go just to get a company off the ground, just to get a sale.
TopAdvert.net
I could recount in agonizing detail the years of my life I spent poundingthe phone, pounding the pavement, making cold calls, renting trade showbooths, going to no-show appointments, and booking meetings that were atotal waste of time.
But not anymore. I don’t go to them anymore; customers come to me. It’sbeen that way so long, I’m very much used to it now.
They’ll come to you, too.Getting new customers is a real grind for a lot of people. It’s the number-
one obstacle to starting a new business. But all that can be a thing of the past.Instead of chasing customers, they can now come to you, all day and allnight.
History has proved Google AdWords to be the biggest revolution inadvertising in the past 50 years. Never before had it been possible to spendfive bucks, open an account, and have brand-new, precisely targetedcustomers coming to your website within minutes.
There are a lot of things you might want from Google. Maybe you’readding an online component to your retail operation, giving you steadier cashflow and deeper discounts from your suppliers. Maybe your payroll is goingto get easier. Maybe your consulting business will be positioned better.
Maybe you’re already getting traffic, but free listings are too unreliable.Maybe you’ve been successful selling on eBay, and now you want to playwith the big boys. Maybe you’ve been futzing around with “social media,”and you’ve finally decided it’s time to make some money instead. Maybeyou’re a working mom, and you want to finally be able to come home.
If you’re privy to the secrets of online marketing, all those opportunitieswill open up to you. You’ll have fresh, hot sales leads waiting for you in youremail inbox every morning when you sit down at your desk. You’ll havecustomers buying from you 24/7/365.
Instead of chasing customers, they’ll come to you. Instead of trying toguess whether your next product launch will work, you can know. Why is thiseven possible? Because in the last decade, the very direction of business itselfhas reversed.
In the old days (remember the 1990s?), entrepreneurs and salespeoplechased customers with phone calls, letters, and ads in newspapers. Now,customers chase businesses on the web.
Back then, you had a list of prospects you tried to get to buy. Now the
TopAdvert.net
buyers—millions of them—are trolling the web every second of the day,looking for businesses that can scratch their itch.
Ever heard Woody Allen’s saying “80 percent of success is showing up”?The phrase takes on a whole new meaning in the 21st century. If you justshow up on Google and its search partners, when people type in the rightphrase, a starving crowd will bust your doors down to eat at your restaurant.
They’ll fill every table and book the kitchen with orders. If they like thedaily special and the dessert, they’ll come back and eat again.
There’s a big feast going on if you show up.Here, you’ll discover the secrets of showing up. Not just somewhere, but
at the right places and times. In front of the right people. And if you’realready advertising on Google, you’ll learn how to cut your bid prices 20percent, 50 percent, or maybe even 70 percent or more.
This book is for:
Online catalog and “mail order” marketersLocal retail stores and service businessesNiche product marketersHome businesses run from spare bedrooms or basement officesAuthors, speakers, consultants, and publishersB2B marketers collecting sales leadsNonprofits, churches, and charitiesResellers, repair services, parts suppliersOnline communities and membership sites
Google AdWords can help your business whether you’re the little oldlady selling quilts in Eastern Kentucky or the multinational corporation. Youdon’t have to be a geek to do this; many of the best online marketers arenontechnical people who succeed simply because they understand theircustomers.
A lot of these success stories are from “invisible entrepreneurs.” Byinvisible, I mean that their next-door neighbors have no idea what they doand probably just assume they’re unemployed or something.
But they’re running micro-empires from their spare bedrooms. Andthey’re in hundreds of industries, ranging from the mundane to the ridiculousto the outrageously specialized.
TopAdvert.net
Some of these guys and gals are making serious cash: tens, evenhundreds, of thousands of dollars a month. And they’re not in “sleazy”businesses, either.
In this book, I’m going to show you exactly how they do it.
Google Gets Searched 5.5 Billion Times EveryDay
Every search is typed in by a person who has an itch they wantto scratch.
Source: Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com/google-now-handles-2-999-trillion-searches-per-year-250247), May 2016
HERE’S HOW TO MAKE SURE THEY FIND YOUAND BUY FROM YOU—NOT SOMEONE ELSEGot a watch with a second hand?
Tick. 60,000 people just searched Google for something and went tosomebody’s website.
Tick. 60,000 more.Tick. 60,000 more.3,600,000 people a minute. Every minute, all day long.All night long.Here they come. 60,000 every second.Are they finding your website?Are they buying from you?Or are they finding someone else’s website and buying from them
instead?They could be finding you. They should be finding you. They can find
you and buy from you. Many of them will come to your site, buy from you,and come back again and again, if you follow the simple instructions in this
TopAdvert.net
book.Google AdWords can be the traffic monster that feeds your autopilot
marketing machine and churns out a profit for you every day and every night,hitting the entire world up for customers while you sleep. Not just bringingyou tire kickers but highly qualified buyers who are proactively looking forexactly what you sell right this very minute.
Buying from you. Not somebody else.If the internet matters to your business, then no book you’ve ever bought
has more potential to make or save you money than this one.This book is written so you can blow through it, fast, and get going
immediately on your course to make serious money with Google insidermarketing tactics. That’s the fun part: quickly implementing killer tactics thatwill flood your business with prospects and profit.
But there’s a serious side, too. I’ve held nothing back here. So not onlywill you know how to play the Google AdWords game, you’ll discover howto craft powerful marketing messages and hooks, bond with your customers,and dominate your market.
In this book you’ll discover:
Tragic, costly mistakes that almost all Google advertisers and onlineentrepreneurs make—and how to easily avoid them (includingtechniques Google itself should teach you but doesn’t).
How to disaster-proof business startups and product launches andpound the risk out of new ventures. (Most times, you’ve only got oneor two shots to nail it; why would you want to leave anything tochance?)
Profiles of successful online businesses. Having coached hundreds ofonline entrepreneurs to success, I’ve accumulated a list of vitalcharacteristics that separate winners from the losers, many of whichdefy normal “business school wisdom.”
How to create ultra-persuasive Google ads and web pages that notonly convert visitors to buyers, but automatically improve with time,making it impossible for your rivals to catch up to you.
The advanced (but simple) shortcut secrets of getting deep into yourcustomer’s head so you know exactly where his hot buttons are andhow to punch them at will. Result: Customer loyalty that reaches
TopAdvert.net
fanatical levels and a rabid customer base that eagerly buys almosteverything you ask them to buy.
If you’re already advertising on Google, you’ll get 30 percent to 300percent more visitors, for less money than you’re paying right now.
While many hard-core “let’s get after it” types will mark up and dog-earthis book, you can really start seeing results while you’re reading it. There areshortcuts you can get after tonight, and see results before you go to bed anhour later.
Your business can literally be better by tomorrow morning.So strap on your crash helmet because you’re in for a wild ride. Onward!
Stick with me, Mike, and my partner Bryan as we show you the secrets toonline business success.
—Perry Marshall
P.S.: I’ve created an online supplement to this book with more than $85worth of extended book chapters, audio interviews, information onspecialized topics, and ongoing updates on Google’s ever-changing rules.You can access it at www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
P.P.S.: Here are some cool success stories I’ve gotten from my customers:
I’m telling everyone that your book is “required reading” if they wantto market online. I actually read your “Definitive Guide” in one day,and that evening started my first AdWords campaign. I now have fourof them running, and the average click-through rate for all campaignsis above 2 percent. I also get well over a 3 percent CTR (some as highas 15 percent) on my more targeted keywords. This has increased thetraffic to my sites tenfold in some cases and has made my monthlyrevenues much more consistent (which is always nice). Best of all,I’ve never had a keyword shut down by Google for low CTR, andI’ve only done one round of “peel and stick” with my ads. I give allthe credit to my recent AdWords success to you and your book.
—RYAN DEISS, AUSTIN, TX
TopAdvert.net
I first purchased Perry’s AdWords guide about five years ago and justrecently purchased the newest version.
That’s about five years of Perry Marshall information, and I’venever once been offered a dream. I don’t do AdWords advertisingbecause I can’t afford it.
But Perry never promised me that I could get rich using AdWords,i.e., he never tried to sell me a dream. I really appreciate that. Like hesaid, AdWords is not a business. It’s a tool you can use to advertiseyour business, and I don’t know anyone that’s more qualified thanPerry Marshall that can teach you how to benefit from AdWords.
I can promise you this. This information will save you a lot ofmoney and possibly even an arm and a leg . . . it all depends on whatkind of fish you’re swimming with.
—ROGER KELLEY, DECATUR, AL
Since your last coaching call, we made the keyword matchingchanges as you recommended and have the following to show you.Our overall CTR is 4.4 percent—our best ad is 12.4 percent and theworst one is a very respectable 3.1 percent!
—SIMON CHEN, THE EIGHT BLACK GROUP, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
I’ve been a faithful Perry fan since I met him at a Dan Kennedy eventabout five years ago. I own most of Perry’s products, I’ve beenthrough the Bobsled Run twice and I attended a four-man intensive athis house last year.
Perry always tells it like it is. He’s not like most of the “gurus” outthere always trying to sell you their next product or coachingprogram. Perry gives us rock-solid advice on how to grow ourbusiness or how to sell more products. He repeats his solid adviceover and over with no sales hype. That’s why we love and trust Perry.That’s why I’ve been a longtime customer and I buy everything heoffers.
Recently, I took a real job after being on my own for ten years.
TopAdvert.net
I’m now an online marketing/SEO analyst for a local softwarecompany. I’m managing their AdWords campaigns, which are over$20,000 per month worldwide.
Using what Perry taught me, I increased their CTR from just over1 percent to over 6 percent in just one day. They’re running threetimes more ads on the same budget, and they’re getting betterqualified leads.
Think about using your knowledge managing AdWordscampaigns as a consultant or for a company. There are tons of onlinemarketing jobs out there right now, and most pay over six figures ayear. I never thought I could go back to a real job, but I love gettingthat steady paycheck and going home at five o’clock every day notworrying about keeping my business going. Plus, I’m consulting onthe side still, so I’m making more than I ever have.”
—TED PRODROMOU, SAN ANSELMO, CA, AUTHOR, ULTIMATE GUIDE TOLINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS
Your AdWords guide is worth hundreds of times its cost. And the freeadvice in your marketing emails—one story in particular about theWright brothers and Samuel Langley—has been absolutely priceless.
—PAUL DEL PIERO, AUSTIN, TX
I was getting about 2,830 clicks per month with Google AdWords at$1.06 per click. I’ve spent about eight hours total reading your stuffand implementing it. Based on the results of my last few days, I amon track to get 7,815 clicks in the next month and spend the same$3,000 a month . . . a savings of $23,400 per year, or $2,925 per hourfor the 8 hours I have invested. This is without doubt one of theabsolute best investments I’ve ever made and I haven’t even started!And yes, I have done most of this while sitting at home in myunderwear.
—KEITH LEE, TMS, KENT, WA
TopAdvert.net
I had spent almost $100,000 on wasted SEO firms and websites withno real reward. I discovered Perry on another podcast I was listeningto and have learned so much in only a year. I have just startedemploying his processes to Google AdWords and am reaping thebenefits already. I appreciate your delivery of information and thelack of BS in your sales tactics. . .
You bring great info to the table so we do not have to sort throughto find what is useful. It’s simply amazing watching my clickthroughrate go from 0.3 percent up to 48.0 percent in less than 30 minutes.
The most important part is I AM BEATING THECOMPETITION in cost and, better yet, finding areas of “nocompetition.” Thanks for such awesome marketing advice. Yourmaterial is by far the most valuable I have purchased. Your conceptsare working for me, and I intend on running this as a service for a lotof my web hosting clientele.”
—EDDIE SYMONDS, UPPER MARLBORO, MD
WOW! I got a 500 percent increase in response . . . with just a quick“Band-Aid” fix. Can’t wait to see what happens when I follow all ofyour suggestions.”
—JENNY HAMBY, COPYWRITER AND SEMINAR MARKETING CONSULTANT,SEMINARMARKETINGPRO.COM, PLAINFIELD, IL
Meet Uncle Claude
If You’ve Ever Sold Anything on the Internet, This ManIs Your Uncle
TopAdvert.net
Every field of knowledge exists because a handful of luminaries madeground-breaking discoveries and showed others the way. And there’salmost always one who stands head and shoulders above the others.
In management, it’s Peter Drucker. In engineering, it’s Thomas Edison.In physics, Albert Einstein. In rock ‘n’ roll, it’s the Beatles. Forsaxophone players, it’s John Coltrane.
In results-driven advertising, it’s Claude Hopkins (1866–1932).Whether you know it or not, if your website is generating a profit, it’sbecause you’ve discovered something that Hopkins figured out,probably before the turn of the century.
Uncle Claude invented the coupon (Did you know he created it so thatadvertisers could track their results?) and pioneered concepts like splittesting, premiums, free samples. and mail-order marketing. In fact, hisbook Scientific Advertising is so important, we’ve included it in theonline supplement to this book at www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
In the rest of this book, we take Hopkins’s ideas, which in the late1800s took months to implement and test, and show you how to do thesame thing literally 10,000 times faster. We’ve included choice nuggetsof wisdom from him in many of the upcoming chapters.
Thanks to Uncle Claude, it’s never been easier—or more scientific—tomake a fortune in marketing.
TopAdvert.net
M
Chapter 3
KeywordsAdWords Success Starts Here
y friend, colleague, and client Matt Gillogly was running Google adsin real estate. As you might expect, real estate keywords are
ferociously competitive, especially nationwide. He was looking for acompetitive edge.
One night he was watching a real estate TV show, and it occurred to him:“Hey, I bet a lot of people who watch this show are my perfect targetcustomers because they’re amateur real estate investors.”
He started bidding on the name of that TV show as a keyword. To his delight,he discovered, 1) yes, there’s a fair amount of searches for this show, and 2)yes, those customers buy!
It pays to be a little more resourceful than everybody else when you dokeyword research!
Keywords are the heart and soul of AdWords. There are certainly otherelements you need to understand in order to guarantee your success at pay-per-click (PPC). But fail to understand keywords, and your business will tank—guaranteed.
Many online marketers think of extra keywords like finding a few bucksunder the car seat and add a few of them onto an existing marketingcampaign to generate a little extra profit.
Not so! You need to be deliberate. Different kinds of keywords demand
TopAdvert.net
different strategies.Keywords are your foundation. Get the right keywords in place from the
beginning and everything that follows becomes that much easier.Think about the number of times in an average day that you open Google
in your browser or phone and run a search. Maybe you’re researching a workproject. Maybe you’re browsing for a cool new gadget. Checking footballscores. Looking for that one “how to” video. Settling an argument overwhether it’s possible to sneeze with your eyes open. And so on.
Nearly everything we do online begins with a search. And that involvesthinking up the best phrase that represents the problem we’re trying to solve,the question we’re trying to answer, or the itch we want to scratch. This iswhy keyword research is a step in PPC strategy that you cannot skip.
Let’s say you run a website that sells the latest tablet computers. Imagineyourself in the shoes of someone who is about to search for tablets and placesto buy them. What keywords would he or she type in?
This exercise isn’t new. Marketers and salespeople throughout the ageshave formulated winning pitches by figuring out what’s going on in the headsof the people they want to sell to. Decades ago, Robert Collier famously said,“Always enter the conversation that is already taking place in the customer’smind.”
Think about that. Too many business owners are trying to create aconversation in the mind of their customers when what they should really bedoing is figuring out the conversation that is already there.
None of us wants to be told what to think. But we love people who canecho exactly what we’re already thinking and feeling. Stepping in to helpcustomers get where they already want to go and do what they already wantto do is where true PPC magic happens.
The amazing part is, before the internet, the conversation in a customer’smind was a private deal, a mystery you could only guess at. But in theGoogle age, your customer opens his browser and literally types his innerhead conversation into the search bar!
We may not be able to predict the exact keywords an individual is goingto use, but 99 percent of the guesswork has been removed from the process,and as we’ll see later, absolute precision isn’t necessary anyway. Thekeywords you choose now are just the starting point. They will change overtime, so don’t overanalyze this part. Just get started.
TopAdvert.net
So here’s where we start: imagine your ideal customer, and picture whatit is they’re likely to type into Google. Do that and you’re the first giant stepcloser to constructing a highly effective PPC campaign.
HOW TO FIND THE MOST PROFITABLEKEYWORDSBy now, you’ve likely figured out that once you start trying to predict thekeywords your customers are using, you’re going to end up with a very, verylong list.
Not to worry. The longer your list of keywords, the wider the array ofcustomers you’ll reach. That said, don’t spend months trying to create anexhaustive list. We start by narrowing things down a little bit. You can findthe audience that’s most interested in your product or service byunderstanding the three major groups of online searchers:
1. Informational searchers are people looking for general informationon a topic. It’s usually hard to tell exactly what each person is lookingfor. One person might be doing research for a term paper. Anotherperson might be killing time waiting for a bus. The vast majority ofthis group are not ready to buy and probably never will be.
2. Comparison searchers are definitely interested in your product butthey’re still at the research stage, checking out reviews and comparingprices. Some folks from this group will be ready to buy in a matter ofdays or even hours, but for others it may be weeks, months, orpossibly never.
3. Buyers are typing with one hand and their credit card in the other.They know exactly what they want and the only barrier to making apurchase is finding the right place and the right deal.
So how do you tell which of these three groups a person is in? Bystudying the keywords they enter into the search bar. As a general rule ofthumb, the more specific the search, the closer they are to the “Buyer” group.
Take, for instance, the three different types of people searching fortelevisions:
An information seeker will generally search for keywords containing just
TopAdvert.net
one or two words with no modifiers:
TV66-inch TVOLED TVFlat screen TV
A comparison shopper is a bit more specific, using modifiers that willhelp find sites containing greater depth of information:
Samsung TV reviews4K TVsCompare OLED TVsAlternatives to LG 66-inch TV
Finally, the buyer is very specific, often using the results of his previousresearch in the keywords.
Order 42-inch LG TVBuy LG 4K onlineVIZIO M series 2017 buy onlineLG OLED B6P best price
If you’re just getting started with your AdWords campaigns and budget isyour biggest concern, it makes sense to target only the buyer group. Thesefolks are the easiest to convert to customers. As your experience grows, youcan extend your reach to the comparison and, to some degree, even theinformational searchers as well.
So let’s start with a group of buyers and put together a first draft of ourkeyword list.
Step 1: Scour Your WebsiteBrowse through your site and your entire product range and make a list ofeverything you sell. You probably know your product line pretty well. Stepinto your customer’s shoes and assume he or she doesn’t know your products
TopAdvert.net
by heart. Think of synonyms he or she might use. Then combine these withsome of the common buyer and comparison keywords.
Sticking with our TV example, if one of your products is a LG OLEDTV, then you might come up with these keyword combinations:
LED LG OLED TVBuy LG OLED TVBest LG OLED TVCompare LG OLED TV
Step 2: Sniff Out Your CompetitionTake a look at your top competitors’ websites. You’ll almost certainly find afew phrases and expressions that you hadn’t thought of. Add these to your listas well.
Step 3: Ask Your CustomersDo a survey. Have a casual phone chat with a few of your most recent buyers.Ask them specifically how they found your site and, if they can remember,the keywords they searched on in the process. Also quiz them about the kindof keywords they use in their searches in general. At this stage, you won’thear a huge amount that surprises you, but you’ll definitely pick up a handfulof new keywords or modifiers to add to your list.
Step 4: Ask Your Staff, Family, and FriendsThis is an extension of Step 3. At this stage, you may feel like you’rescraping the bottom of the barrel. But that’s the point—it’s all aboutcompiling as exhaustive a list as you can.
Step 5: Dive into the Keyword ToolsFor the most part, Google’s keyword resource is good enough. (More on thatin a bit.) As you gain experience, however, third-party tools will allow you to
TopAdvert.net
dig even deeper. This is especially true if you’re managing PPC campaignsfor clients.
There are plenty of software applications to choose from. SEMrush orWordStream are each helpful in their own way. Most keyword tools of thistype work by figuring out what your competitors are bidding on and feedingthe data back to you. There are limits to how accurate this supply ofinformation can be. But they will give you keyword ideas you wouldotherwise have missed.
HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM GOOGLE’SKEYWORD PLANNERIf you’ve been diligent with the previous steps, you should now have a longlist of keywords. We’ll use Google’s Keyword Planner to add a few more andthen begin the refining process.
You don’t need to be running PPC ads to use Google’s tool, but you doneed an AdWords account. If you haven’t opened one yet, now’s the time.
The advantage of the Keyword Planner comes from Google’s massivestorehouse of data that it uses to find you new keywords and to predict theircost and value.
Find the Keyword Planner under “Tools” at the very top of the AdWordspage:
On the front end, the Keyword Planner presents you with five options tobegin your research:
TopAdvert.net
1. Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category. Entera keyword or a URL, and Google will give you a whole bunch ofideas to get you started.
2. Get search volume data and trends. If you already have a list ofkeywords, Google will give you an estimate of the number of peoplewho are searching on each of these phrases each month.
TopAdvert.net
TopAdvert.net
3. Multiply keyword lists to get new keywords. This feature takes twodistinct types of keyword lists and combines them into one master list.For example, you could have one list of your products and a secondlist of all the various colors in which your products are available.
TopAdvert.net
This may seem like a clever feature, but it’s not a particularly useful one.The master list you end up with will contain scores of obscure keywordcombinations that will receive little or no traffic. Google could penalize youfor this by showing your ads less frequently or requiring you to bid more foryour keywords.
The other two options help you plan your budgets and forecast spend, butyou can safely ignore those now.
Let’s focus on “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website orcategory.” Begin with a single, broad phrase or word that describes yourprimary product, or simply enter your URL. (Try your competitor’s URL,too.) You have the option to select a category, but this isn’t strictly necessaryat this stage.
Finally, click the “Get Ideas” button.
TopAdvert.net
Google will respond with an avalanche of “Ad group ideas,” each themedaround a specific set of keywords. For example, if you entered “bed” as yourkeyword, you can expect to see one ad group for bunk beds, another ad groupfor queen beds, another for children’s beds, and so on.
The default view at this point is “Ad group ideas,” but after performingyour search, you’ll see an alternate tab titled “Keyword ideas.” Click on thisand you’ll receive a wealth of additional information on each suggestedkeyword.
Plus you’ll also see a couple of features on the left-hand side, one called“Targeting” and the other called “Customize your search.” We’re going touse these to get Google’s seemingly endless list of suggestions down to amanageable number.
Start out by using the “Targeting” options to refine your search:
TopAdvert.net
LocationIf you only service a specific country or region, then this is where you specifythat. If you adjust this option, you’ll notice that the statistics Google hasprovided on areas such as “Average monthly searches” and “Suggested bid”will change accordingly.
LanguagesThis is self-explanatory and is usually set to “All languages” by default.
Let Others Do Your Keyword Research for You
In addition to using your website URL or that of a competitor,you can also get some very interesting results by entering theURL of the Wikipedia page that’s most relevant to yourprimary keyword. Once you’ve done that, enter that sameWikipedia URL at OpenSiteExplorer.org(https://moz.com/researchtools/ose) and you’ll find a wholerange of other closely related pages that you can plug intoGoogle’s Keyword Planner.
TopAdvert.net
You can repeat this exercise using URLs from onlinedirectories, blogs, and even forums that are closely related toyour main keyword. These are easy to find in Google bysearching for your primary keyword along with the relevantmodifier. For example, if you were looking for blogs on thesubject of beds, search for: beds +blogs.
NetworkDo you want your ads to be shown only for searches on Google, or also onGoogle’s search partner sites? When you’re starting out, err on the side ofchoosing the simplest options and then expand as you grow in experience andconfidence.
Negative KeywordsEnter a keyword here and Google’s suggestions will no longer contain thatsearch term.
How Many Keywords Do You Need?Once you’ve finished refining your list, you can either download thekeywords to add to your existing list or import Google’s list directly into acampaign. The choice is yours. Either way, you may still want to do someadditional trimming.
PPC beginners frequently fall into the trap of assuming that keywords areall about volume and trying to hit every possible angle. In practice, havingtoo many keywords is worse than not having enough. You want to find that“Goldilocks zone” where you have enough keywords to give you results butnot so many that you dilute your efforts and end up with overload.
If you’re starting out, go for a minimum of 50 keywords and an absolutemaximum of 250. (You can certainly have more than these, but let’s keepthings simple at first.)
So what do you cut, and what do you keep?
TopAdvert.net
Imagine that you’re an archer looking at your target. The bull’s-eyerepresents the keywords that are right on the money and a near-perfect matchfor what you’re offering. The ring just outside the bull’s-eye representskeywords that are still closely matched but not quite as exact. The next ringout contains keywords that are still good but are bringing you more shoppersand comparison searchers than buyers.
How to Zero in on the Profitable Keywords
Another way to streamline your keyword list is to useGoogle’s filter to focus on keywords that have medium or highlevels of competition, or that have a minimum bid threshold ofat least $1.
Google’s PPC program has been around long enough that ifcertain keywords have a very low cost of entry, it’s almostcertainly because lots of other advertisers have tried to usethem and struggled to make them profitable. By focusing onlyon fairly popular keywords, at least at this stage, you’ll be ableto exclude keywords that will be more challenging to convertinto profit.
When creating your first keyword shortlist, start with the bull’s-eye, andwork your way out from there. The resulting list will provide you with anexcellent starting point from which you will be able to run your firstprofitable campaigns.
STEP UP YOUR GAME USING KEYWORDMATCHING OPTIONSWhen you’re ready to import your keyword list into Google, there’s a final
TopAdvert.net
step to consider. And beware: skip this step, and you’ll burn through yourbudget in a matter of days, maybe even hours. Plus, your conversion rateswill be pitiful.
Remember, we’re targeting buyers first and foremost. You’ve likely spentconsiderable time crafting your keyword list to focus on this group. But ifyou simply import those keywords into your ad groups as they are, you mayunintentionally waste all your hard work.
Google provides matching options as a means to match your keywordswith genuine, real-world searches. This process is entirely in your hands. Letme explain.
1. Broad MatchIf you don’t tell Google how and when to show your keywords, it will defaultto this setting and show your ads for any search it considers relevant. Thiscould include searches that use your keywords in any order, or don’t evencontain your keywords at all.
So if you enter your keyword into your list as
formal shoes
with no punctuation or brackets, then Google could show your ads for anyof these searches:
What are formal shoes?Will formal shoes get me a better job?Buy shoes onlineGood work shoesSmart shoes for prom
Can you see the problem here? The first two are by informationalsearchers who are a long way from spending money. The next three searchesare vague and will pull in people looking for products you don’t even stock.
The result? You’re going to waste money on tire-kickers or you’re goingto get a very low clickthrough rate. If that happens, Google’s “Quality Score”rules kick in, which could make your PPC campaigns far more costly to
TopAdvert.net
operate.This is one of the biggest pits new PPC operators fall into. It’s Google’s
“Stupidity Tax.” Broad-match searches generally get lots of impressions—and it looks as if something good is happening—but their clickthrough ratesand conversions are usually abysmal.
The solution is simple. Google lets you input your keywords with somesimple punctuation that more specifically indicates what kinds of searchesyou want to show for.
2. Exact MatchThis option gives you total control. You’ll get fewer impressions and fewerclicks overall, but you won’t have to worry about wasting clicks on uselesssearches. Just enter your keyword with square brackets around it:
[buy formal shoes]
Ads connected to this keyword will now only show when people type inthis keyword phrase verbatim. If a person searching enters a keyword phrasethat includes any other words before, after, or in between, your ad won’tshow.
In the above instance, your ad will show for this search:
buy formal shoes
But it won’t show for any of these:
buy formal shoes onlineformal shoes buyblack formal shoesformal black shoes
Your ad also won’t show if the searcher enters “buy formal shoes” with amisspelling. (Although you can choose the misspelling option—more on thatin Chapter 7 on “Campaign Settings.”)
And that’s why exact match is a two-edged sword!
TopAdvert.net
You avoid wasted impressions at the expense of missed opportunities. Toput it bluntly, people are weird: for all the effort you put into finding the mostlogical keywords to use, someone will use the word “purchase” instead of“buy,” and you’ll miss out on valuable traffic.
Which brings us to . . .
3. Phrase MatchEnter your keyword in straight quotation marks. People will see your adwhen they type in the keyword in that precise order, but your ad will alsodisplay if they type in additional words before or after:
“formal shoes”
With this keyword, your ad will show for all of the following searches:
formal shoesbuy formal shoesformal shoes buypurchase formal shoesbuy formal shoes online
However, it won’t show for searches that insert anything in between thekeywords or use them in a different order. For example:
shoes formalformal black shoesbuy formal work shoesformal men’s shoes
Phrase match is useful because you get more impressions than with exactmatch but you still retain a level of accuracy.
You may still miss out on some opportunities, however.
4. Modified Broad Match
TopAdvert.net
This option behaves like broad match but you can specify that one or more ofthe words in your key phrase must always be present. Add a plus signimmediately before the nonnegotiable word, like this:
+formal shoes
This keyword will show for any search that Google considers relevant butonly if the person searching included the word “formal.” This way your adswill show for all of the following searches:
buy formal shoesbuy formal footwearaffordable formal black shoeswhat are formal shoes?formal shoe shop
But your ad will not show for:
buy work shoesbest smart shoesbuy black evening footwearsmart cheap black shoes
There’s lots of flexibility with modified broad match but, as the aboveillustrates, you need to think carefully about which words to “anchor” usingthat “+”; otherwise you could still wind up with some irrelevant impressionsor miss out on some key opportunities.
In this example you might be better off with:
+buy formal shoes
Google knows what formal shoes are, so let them show your ads forsearches related to the concept but restrict it to searches that contain the word“buy.”
It all comes back to intent. What is the conversation taking place in yourideal customer’s head? Most people who use the word “buy” in a search arelooking for websites that sell the product in question and are ready to spend
TopAdvert.net
money.Modified broad match offers a superb balance between flexibility and
accuracy and is an important tool to learn to use well. However, when youfirst start out, it can offer many opportunities for mistakes. The problems weidentified with broad match can easily manifest themselves here if you putthe “+” in the wrong place!
If you’re feeling confident, give it a try. But if you’re putting togetheryour very first campaign, and especially if your budget is tight, start just withphrase match and pin down the most targeted searches for your product orservice.
Matching Options and Single Words
WARNING: It’s typically best not to use phrase match orbroad match for keywords that consist of a single word. Thiswill greatly limit Google’s ability to understand yourcampaign’s intent, and you’ll often end up matched with a verybroad range of searches, most of which will be highlyirrelevant. The result will be a high spend and minimal success.
5. Negative KeywordsThese are a wonderful and underrated addition to any AdWords account.We’ll dig into these in much more detail in Chapter 21, “Quality Score.”
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYKeywords are the foundation of a strong AdWords strategy, but they’re onlythe starting point. Don’t obsess over building the perfect keyword list foryour first campaigns. Good enough is good enough, and to be frank, thekeyword list you have 12 months from now will probably look nothing likethe one you have today. After you’ve spent a few months eliminating
TopAdvert.net
ineffective or costly keywords, finding variations of the winners, andreviewing your search query reports to see how searches are changing, yourkeyword list will have grown and evolved into something far moreinteresting, finely targeted, and profitable.
All journeys begin with a single step. Here’s a quick review of what youneed to do to get started:
Set up your AdWords account.Brainstorm keyword ideas.Use Google’s Keyword Planner to expand your keyword list.Refine the list with options and filters.
Uncle Claude Sez
The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests. Longor short, no one reads ads for amusement. Think of your readers asprospects standing before you, seeking information. Give them enoughinformation to get action.
TopAdvert.net
Y
Chapter 4
How to Write Google AdsAttract Eyeballs, Get Clicks, and Earn
Money
our Google ads are an army of 100,000 tiny salesmen traversing theentire planet for you, and you only have to pay their salaries when the
customers crack their doors open to listen to them.
Advertising is selling in print. That means the words you should use in yourGoogle ads are the same words you use when you’re on the phone or sittingacross the table from a prospect, convincing him to buy something.
Before you try to write advertising copy, you should try to explain whatyou’re selling to someone who might buy. And then . . . when they raise theireyebrows and lean forward, pay attention to what you just said.
My friend and mentor John Carlton, one of the highest-paid advertisingcopywriters in the world, spends weeks, sometimes months, researching hisclients’ products or services, going from person to person or business tobusiness, gauging their reactions and questions. John learns what buyersreally want and the certain turns of phrase that make or break the sale.
My own website sports a perfect example of this. My first lead-generationoffer was a CD called Guerilla Marketing for Hi-Tech Sales People. The titleof this CD came about exactly as follows. I was walking a trade show floorwearing a “speaker” badge a couple of years ago, and people would ask me
TopAdvert.net
what I was speaking on.I tried a few different titles: “21 Secrets of High-Impact Low-Cost
Marketing”. . . “The Cold-Call Curse”. . . “Advertising Strategies forTechnical Sales” . . . but the one that provoked positive reactions was“Guerilla Marketing for Hi-Tech Sales People.” So that’s what it’s been eversince.
Those tiny Google ads succeed for exactly the same reasons. The onlychallenge is your limited space. Two headlines can be up to 30 characterseach, with a description of up to 80 characters. The website URL displayed inthe ad can also be up to 35 characters long and is based on the final URL youenter. You can also add two “paths” to the display URL, of up to 15characters each.
So those are your constraints. And that’s OK because your goal is notcomplex: just be clear, simple, and relevant. Claude Hopkins understood thiswell:
Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory haswith salesmanship. One must be able to express himself briefly,clearly, and convincingly, just as a salesman must. But fine writing isa distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attentionfrom the subject. . . . Fine talkers are rarely good salesmen. . . .Successful salesmen are rarely good speechmakers. . . . They areplain and sincere men who know their customers. . . . So it is in adwriting.
English majors and Ph.Ds. (and even MBAs) generally suffer from severemarketing debilitations. In advertising, an academic education is more of aliability than an asset! You don’t need to be a literary genius.
Google ads are the language of the street, not the ivory tower. Speak toyour customers in the language they respond to in everyday conversation, andthey’ll click.
GREAT HEADLINES: RIVETING TO YOURCUSTOMER, DEAD BORING TO ANYONE ELSEJust as in print advertising and on web pages, your headline swings the
TopAdvert.net
biggest difference in response. It’s in that split second of reading yourheadline copy that your customer first makes up his mind whether or notyou’re really relevant.
Start with that keyword your customer just typed in and fit it into yourheadline. That will be the first signal to him that you’re truly relevant. Thismeans that you’ll want to create enough different ad groups that each of yourmajor keywords can have an ad of its own.
Let’s say that you sell custom power supplies. There’s certainly morethan one way potential customers might come looking for what you sell.They might search for “adaptors.” They might search for “power supplies.”They might search for “transformers.”
So you’ll go to your major keyword tool, such as Spyfu or Google’sKeyword Planner tool, and you’ll come up with all the possible majorvariations and related terms for your market niche. Then, you’ll separatethem out into smaller groups that you can match to specific ads. For example:
Custom Power Adaptors—Get a QuoteTodaywww.xyzadaptors.com/AdaptorsFast Custom Production Time. Excellent Local Support.Huge Range of Adaptors
adaptoradaptorsac adaptorpower adaptorcustom adaptors
Custom Transformers—Get a QuoteTodaywww.xyzadaptors.com/TransformersFast Custom Production Time. Excellent Local Support.HugeRange of Transformers
TopAdvert.net
power transformerselectrical transformersvoltage transformers
Note: This ad group will need a strong set of negative keywords to blockout traffic looking for Transformers® movie or toy information.
AC/DC Power Supplies—Get a QuoteTodaywww.xyzadaptors.com/Power-SupplyFast Custom Production Time. Excellent Local Support.Huge Range of Power Supplies
power supplypower suppliesswitching power supplydc power suppliesac power supply
These ads aren’t very flashy, are they? They’re not loaded with over-the-top language. In fact, to folks like you and me they’re, frankly, boring. Butthat’s OK. They aren’t meant for the average guy on the street.
This particular company caters to engineers. It speaks the language thatengineers would understand, relate to, and appreciate. It matches its audiencejust fine. And it gets a good clickthrough rate.
Use your major keywords in your headline, and create as many differentad groups as you need to do this with all of your biggest keywords. That’swhat makes the formula work.
YOUR AD TEXT: WHERE YOUR INNERSALESMAN COMES ALIVEAfter your headline, you’ve still got a second chance to convince yourcustomer even further that you’ve got what he wants and get more clicks.This is where your inner salesman comes alive.
TopAdvert.net
There’s a second secret that makes this work. Check out the differencebetween these two ads (note these are old “legacy” ads and this formatdoesn’t exist anymore):
The second ad got 36 times the CTR as the first! What happened? Whatwas the secret?
Look closely at the two ads. They both have the exact same wording.There’s only one difference between them. What is it? The first ad listedfeatures and offers first, benefits second. The second ad listed benefits first.
This secret is just as true in long-copy print advertising as in those littlethumbnail Google ads.
Features and offers are what your product has or what you’re going to do.They describe it, what it includes, and how big or small or robust or thoroughit is. Benefits, on the other hand, are the emotional payoffs your customergets from using your product.
Define the FeaturesSo, the list of features for a book-and-video course you sell may includethese items:
12 timeless principles17 brief, easy-to-understand video tutorials24 chapters, 222 pages of rock-solid content64 full-color photosHelpful, easy-to-read charts and graphsStep-by-step tips and instructionsFascinating stories, anecdotes, and personal experiencesIntroduction by Malcolm Gladwell
TopAdvert.net
Show Them the Benefits and the PayoffBut your list of benefits will tell your customer how she’ll actually be helpedby what you’ve written. Sometimes, there’s a little bit of crossover betweenthese and the features:
Achieve a 46 percent improvement in less than 30 minutes.Reach your goals in one-fourth the time using the 80/20 principledescribed in Chapter X.
Apply any one these 12 techniques immediately, and see instantresults.
Catapult energy levels, convert fat into muscle, and develop strength,endurance, and flexibility all at the same time.
Discover how making more mistakes can be a strategy that builds yourskills even faster.
Get compliments from your friends as they ask you again and again(jealously), “What has happened to you?”
There’s no way to pack all of this kind of content into a Google ad,granted. But the principle of dividing benefits from features is universal.Your Google ad is about benefits (emotional payoffs) more than anythingelse. And when you describe benefits and features both, it almost alwaysserves you to put benefits first.
The second ad did exactly that. Switching the order gave us a 3,600percent improvement! We know this because we tested it. Will it work thisway in your market? That’s for you to find out.
You don’t have to be a poet or a master copywriter to convince yourcustomer that he or she will get something of value. State your case simplyand clearly, and test to see if putting the benefits up front and the featuressecond will boost your response.
Test Your URL and Grow Your Ad’s EffectivenessThe display URL is the second most visible element in your ad. If you’relucky enough to have a domain name that uses the exact keyword phrasepeople are searching on, you’re virtually guaranteed a high CTR. If you can
TopAdvert.net
buy such a domain, you could potentially double your CTR.Regardless, with your existing URLs, we recommend you test other
variations like these in your display URL, including use of keywords assubdomains (which replace the “www”) or subdirectories (which alwaysfollow the “/” slash), and capitalization within those subdirectories:
www.healyourmarriage.comwww.healyourmarriage.com/forgivingwww.healyourmarriage.com/ForgiveHimforgiving.healyourmarriage.co
THE “GOLDILOCKS THEORY”: WHY THE BESTADWORDS ADS ARE NEVER OVER THE TOPWe thought we’d get ultra-creative one day, and we wrote up an in-your-facead that would shock Google users into clicking. We were just sure it wouldwork. After all, the number-one worst thing you can do is bore the hell out ofpeople, right?
Here’s what happened. It’s the second ad below (again, note that these areold ‘“legacy’” ads):
D.I.Y. Sales Leadswww.perrymarshall.comDon’t hire telemarketersMake prospects chase you instead42 Clicks | 1.0% CTR
Escape Voicemail Jailwww.perrymarshall.comGet Customers to Chase You Insteadwith Savvy Guerrilla Marketing20 Clicks | 0.3% CTRDeleted
We thought it was great. Our customers didn’t. This happened again and
TopAdvert.net
again, and we learned a valuable lesson: Google searchers do not generallyrespond to hype. Nor do they respond to messages that are too plain. Whatworks is something in the middle—intriguing, yet not pushy. Swipe ad ideasfrom Cosmo, but do it with caution.
Andrew Goodman, the author of Winning Results with Google AdWords,calls it the “Goldilocks” principle. Not too hot, not too cold—you want thetemperature to be just right.
Avoiding the Google “Slap”Here’s an ad that was very bold and performed well at first . . .
Prospecting Suckswww.perrymarshall.comMake B2B clients call you firstwith smart guerrilla marketing1.1% CTR
Disapproved
. . . until a Google’s editor saw it and disapproved it. Google didn’t let ususe inflammatory words like “Sucks” or “Hate.” We did get away with theword “stinks,” however:
Prospecting Stinkswww.perrymarshall.comTelemarketing Annoys PeopleGuerrilla Marketing is King1.3% CTR
More Rules of the RoadOur friend Richard Stokes and his team over at AdGooroo(www.adgooroo.com) shared some examples of legacy affiliate ads that havestellar performance on Google and therefore get solid positions and low bid
TopAdvert.net
prices, and which get served well above 95 percent of the time on searches.Here are a couple:
Keyword “FTD fruit baskets”:
Fruit Gift Baskets, FRESHcapalbosOnline.com/Since-1906Always Fresh! Register & Save 5% onEvery Order. Nationwide Delivery.
Keyword “fashion sneakers”:
Fashion Sneakers & Shoeswww.zappos.com/Fashion-Sneakers/Upgrade to Free Overnight ShippingBy Ordering One Item of Clothing!
Why do these work?
Both include the keyword phrase in the ad’s headline.Both make careful use of exclamation points.The second has an implicit call to action (“Upgrade to . . .”).Each word is capitalized, and the first ad makes use of all caps.The second ad makes careful use of the word “Free.”Specific, concrete numbers are used wherever possible.
FOCUSING YOUR ADS TO SAVE $$$ ON CLICKSYour Google ads are an army of hardworking salespeople whose job it is tobring as many of the best prospects possible to your website. But you don’twant just anybody. You don’t want tire kickers; you don’t want the looky-loos. You want genuinely interested people.
After all, you have to pay every time they click.
What to Do When a High CTR Is Not Your Goal
TopAdvert.net
Sometimes, you find yourself in a very crowded marketplace attempting tosingle out only a small percentage of people who you know are a real fit forwhat you offer.
That was the case with the adaptors example we showed you earlier. Thebusiness we were promoting provides custom-built electrical adaptors,converters, and transformers for high-tech original equipment manufacturersand deals only in large-quantity orders.
You can imagine how many different types of people go looking on theinternet for adaptors or converters or transformers in any given day. Evenafter we’ve used negative keywords (which we talk about in Chapters 3 and21) to filter out the searches that we don’t want—such as Transformers® toyrobots or online dollar-to-yen currency converters—we’ve still got peoplesearching for the same terms we’re bidding on who aren’t looking for whatwe offer.
The guy who’s just looking for a replacement power adaptor for hispersonal IBM laptop, for example. He’s not our man.
So it’s up to our Google ad to filter out the rest of that traffic—to get asmany good clicks as possible but as few of every other kind. The more is notthe merrier.
Connect with Your Niche CustomersThe key is being clear and specific. We’re going to write an ad that addressesprecisely the type of customer we’re after:
AC/DC Converters for OEMs—Get aQuote in 1 Dayxyzadaptors.com/Converters/OEMQty 250+, Rapid Custom Production1-Day Quote & Overnight Delivery
This ad won’t win any awards for high CTR or stunning copy, but itknocks out three criteria: 1) it’s for people wanting custom design, not off-the-shelf, 2) it’s for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) only, and 3)it’s for orders of 250 units or more.
TopAdvert.net
A lot of people are going to see this ad and pass it up, and that’s OK. Allwe want are clicks from people who match these criteria. The ad will do itsjob.
Again, there’s no black magic. Just tell your story. Be clear, bestraightforward, interesting, customer-centered, and most importantly,relevant. Sell on the computer screen just like you’d sell in person. Andpeople will see that you’re for real, and they’ll click and buy.
IF THE GUYS AT THE BAR WILL BUY IT, YOU’VEGOT A WINNING ADJohn Carlton tells the story of the highly paid, highly sought-after copywriterwho writes sales letters aimed at blue-collar men. Before he delivers aproject, he takes the draft down to the neighborhood bar, buys a round ofdrinks for all the guys, and then reads them the letter. Then he gets theircomments.
They chime in and tell him to tweak this, fix that, and change the wordinghere or there. But he knows he doesn’t have a winner yet until one specificthing happens:
One of the guys in the group asks where they can get what the letter isoffering.
That’s when he knows he has a sales letter that’s working. That’s whenit’s ready for press. He’s moved them from being critics to being buyers, andthey don’t even realize it.
Take your copy—your Google ads, your sales page, your direct-mailpieces, your email blasts—and test them in other environments, other venues,with friends or out on the street. When people are salivating over what youoffer, then you’ve got a winner.
Uncle Claude Sez
TopAdvert.net
The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest. Youwish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is “Heythere, Bill Jones” to get the right person’s attention.
So it is in an advertisement. What you have will interest certain peopleonly and for certain reasons. You care only for those people. Thencreate a headline that will hail those people only.
We pick out what we wish to read by headlines, and we don’t wantthose headlines to be misleading. The writing of headlines is one of thegreatest journalistic arts. They either conceal or reveal an interest.
TopAdvert.net
R
Chapter 5
Chisel Your Way in with Bionic GoogleAds
“Most people think they’ve tested 20 Google ads, but they really just tested 2ads 10 different times.”
—DR. GLENN LIVINGSTON
oundtable member Ben Gorelick was on the hot seat in AdWordsCopywriting Express (www.perrymarshall.com/awce) where we
rewrote ads for him. His old ads were “decent.”
In our AdWords Copywriting Express course, I led him through adeliberate, creative process, via the “Swiss Army Knife Formula.” I forcedhim to answer the question: Are you really selling rock climbing? Or are youselling something else? If so, what is the something else?
He does sell something else. You can tell from his new ads what that
TopAdvert.net
“something else” is:
Notice the huge jump in clickthrough rates!The marketing on his website—his autoresponders and everything else—
is already consistent with this message, and fast growing more so. He is nowon a steep vertical climb. If he stays on the path he’s on, by the time hiscompetitors figure out that he’s kicking their asses, he’s going to be so far outahead of them that it’s going to take a lot of energy to catch up; 80 percent ofthem won’t stand a chance.
They’ll still be selling rock climbs by the pound and he’ll be selling athrilling life adventure.
Notice how he doubled his CTR. He tells me his cost per conversion hasplummeted by at least 30 percent and he’s not even close to done with all the“obvious” changes that this shift demands. This one change grew his businessby over $100,000 last year.
How did Ben write such outrageously fun ads with such ease? You’regoing to find out in this chapter.
When you get into the rhythm of Google AdWords, you find yourselfwriting lots of ads. Soon you find out that once you achieve a great ad, it canbe really tough to beat it!
This short chapter will arm you with new tools that help you bust out ofyour creative ruts. This chapter will empower you to write better and
TopAdvert.net
more powerful ads than ever before. It’s especially important if you’re anadvanced player.
Most people find one decent ad formula that “works” and just refine it. Itbecomes a rut. They get stuck. But you can do so much better. Not only canyou chisel your way in where you could not before, you can preempt othersfrom doing the same to you. Today, I’m going to show you two of tenpowerful ways to rocket your CTR with emotional power.
SIX DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF ONE ADThat’s what happened with this example below: six different versions of a“How to Write a Book” ad but same formula for each one.
You test adjectives, verbs, URLs, commas (ad #1 is the “little comma thatcould,” which got an 8 percent CTR boost), and that’s great. But 99 percentof people miss dozens of completely different, superb hooks they could use.You can approach your customers from a completely different, surprisingdirection.
And as your campaigns develop, you become more and more afraid toboldly experiment because you don’t want to hurt your overall CTR and dropin the rankings. So you stay stuck.
The following is an example of a very successful ad campaign that is alsostuck in a rut:
I invented a reliable tool that breaks you out of that rut and consistentlygets high CTRs. It’s called the Swiss Army Knife Formula, and it has 17“blades.” In this chapter, I give you the two most powerful blades, which allby themselves are sufficient to catapult you past your competition.
TopAdvert.net
Here’s an example of four ads that used the Formula. Each ad iscompletely different from the others (#2 had been my control for twomonths), and each commands a very high CTR:
The second ad was my original control. It took months of traditionalGoogle ad refinements to arrive at this ad. The other ads are hot off the press,created with the Swiss Army Knife Formula. All completely different and allwith double-digit CTRs.
PROBLEM: “There are only a few things I can think of to say, and it’sreally hard to not sound like everyone else in my market.”
SOLUTION: There are literally thousands of things you can say, evenin a tiny Google ad, which means there’s no such thing as a market you can’tbreak into or do better in—even if you’ve been stuck with the same controlad for three years.
Use this Formula to generate fresh new ideas for . . .
Google adsFacebook adsHeadlinesNew landing pages to testCompletely new ways to tell your story
Testing new ads becomes simple and formulaic. No more combingthrough huge swipe files looking for something you might be able to use.These are simple formulas you can apply instantly.
TopAdvert.net
Blade #1: All the Different Relationships that ExistBetween Your Customers and Five Other Types of Peopleand Things
This picture shows 15 different relationships: Your customer and the thingshe loves; your customer and the thing she hates, your customer and you, thething your customer loves and its relationship to her worst enemy, and so on.
Most ads are about something the vendor sells or some really obviousproblem related to the keyword. If we’re writing an ad for the keywordphrase bad marriage, the ads you see here are very predictable. Which ispretty typical in almost any market.
TopAdvert.net
The Swiss Army Knife Formula gives us all kinds of new ad hooks. Thenumber-one thing the prospect hates may be constant fighting:
Bad Marriage=Constant FightsDon’t Go To Bed Angry14 Minute Video will Calm Your Mindwww.AngryMarriage.com
Your best friend (at one time anyway) was your husband, and thenumber-one enemy is his lover:
Who is your husband with?Is he sleeping with “her” right now?
TopAdvert.net
Get revenge & a smile on your facewww.BadMarriageRevenge.com
How about an ad that’s about the wife’s worst enemy (the other woman)and the thing your customer hates the most (constant fighting):
Nasty Fight: The Other WomanSick of being compared with “her”?Change the Game. Free Reportwww.BadMarriageReport.com
How about an ad that’s about the wife’s worst enemy and her best friend(in this case her children):
The Other Woman: Step MomHow will you feel whenYour children call her “mommy”?www.BadMarriageReport.com/prevention
See how much emotion you elicit when you focus on the relationshipsbetween key players in your customer’s drama? This is P-O-W-E-R-F-U-L.
I’m not promising you that every ad you write will smack the ball out ofthe park. I guarantee you that will not happen. However, you’ll find a fractionof your Swiss Army Knife Formula ads achieve breakthrough.
Blade #2Blade #2 is using three different kinds of imagery:
VisualAuditoryKinesthetic
You rewrite your ads around pictures, sounds, or physical sensations inyour prospect’s body. Most people process information one of these waysmore than the others.
TopAdvert.net
Visual:
Other Woman PhotographsWill you see her with your childrenin family portraits?www.TheOtherWoman.org/Bad_Marriage
Auditory:
“I Hate My Other Mommy”What will your little boy sayThe day she moves in?www.TheOtherWoman.org/Step_Mom
Kinesthetic:
When He Caresses HerDo you feel sick on the inside?Hope and healing herewww.TheOtherWoman.com/Community
So far we’ve just worked with two blades, which for 99 percent ofmarkets will be enough for you to evolve from “pretty competent competitor”to lean, mean, fighting machine. There are 15 more blades. If you wish to godeeper with the Swiss Army Knife Formula, you can access a video tutorialat www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
Now, you have a systematic method to leapfrog to completely new, freshads on command. Go back through this chapter. Start by doing a Blade 1exercise on your own business for your own customers, then write some ads.Test the ads in your Google account. Don’t wait for tomorrow—do it today.Put the Swiss Army Knife Formula to work today and watch your CTRs andyour conversions skyrocket.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 6
Ads That Pass the TestEditorial Guidelines and Split Testing
oday, I want to tell you a dirty little secret.
A few years ago, Google started slashing and burning Google accounts bythe thousands and tens of thousands.
I myself had almost ten thousand customers who lost their business overnightbecause Google banned thousands of keywords and even entire Googleaccounts. Two days after the very first “Google Slap,” I had 3,800 people (!)sign up for a teleseminar on “What the **** just happened to my Googleaccount?”
That was only the first of a long series of purges, which mostly targetedaffiliates and people in “edgy” businesses like alternative health and businessopportunities.
Another customer of mine sold equipment that enabled you to add waterinjection to your car engine, which can increase fuel efficiency by 15 to 20percent. Google banned his account because of all the problems they had withunscrupulous vendors selling mostly ebooks on the same topic.
What is this all about?Certainly some of it is Google responding to customer complaints and
seeking a quality search experience. But there’s another ingredient: the longarm of the law.
TopAdvert.net
In 2011, Google was fined $500 million by the U.S. Justice Departmentfor selling ads to Canadian pharmacies that were illegally advertising cheapdrugs to U.S. customers. In the government’s opinion, Google was culpableand responsible for the actions of its advertisers.
That, combined with other government crackdowns, has tallied up over abillion dollars in fines. In the U.S. government’s mind, why go after tens ofthousands of rogue operators when you can put one bullet in the head of abehemoth? Uncle Sam punishes Google for the sins of its AdWordscustomers.
This is why Google seems passive-aggressive and bureaucratic. This iswhy you sometimes can’t seem to get a straight answer from Google abouteditorial guidelines. Google itself doesn’t know what’s going to get it in hotwater. So all they can do is try to avoid taking business that’s going to get itin trouble.
So if you’re in business opportunities, weight loss, alternative health,medicine, financial distress, alternative energy—any “edgy” category where1) customers are in a lot of pain or have extremely pressing problems, 2)unscrupulous operators tend to play, and/or 3) markets are regulated orfrequently subject to crackdowns by Attorney Generals and complaints to theFederal Trade Commission—advertising on Google is going to be a diceyproposition.
Just last week, one of my best customers, John, who sells healthsupplements, got banned again, probably for the tenth time. His investorsdecided they were tired of the agony/ecstasy roller coaster with Google andpulled the plug.
This chapter outlines how to stay in Google’s good graces. Then at theend, I offer some more urgent advice that you’ll be wise to take seriously,especially if you’re like John, the health supplement vendor I just told youabout.
FOLLOW THE EDITORIAL GUIDELINES ANDKEEP GOOGLE HAPPYOver the years, Google has refined its policy on what is and isn’t acceptablein an ad. Although most of it is common sense, it has still resulted in a
TopAdvert.net
lengthy list of dos and don’ts, which can be found on Google’s AdWordsPolicy Center pagehttps://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6008942:
Advertiser ClaimsIf you’re going to advertise with Google, you have to be smart about whatyou’re claiming. It comes down to three words: truthful, accurate, and up todate. Sure, there’s some subjectivity here, but as long as you do your levelbest to stay within the spirit of these particular rules, you shouldn’t run intoproblems.
This is good common sense and good marketing sense: a clear connectionbetween the text of your ads and the content on your website. If, for example,your ad offers a discount, it should be easy to find on your website. If your admentions special pricing, it should be no more than two clicks from yourlanding page. Any call to action in your ad should be immediately evident onthe landing page.
If you claim to be the “world’s greatest” or the fastest or smallest orcheapest or most expensive or whatever, you must back up your claim withproof. This isn’t just a good way to stay in Google’s good graces, it’s goodmarketing. Put on your skeptic hat. How do I know that you are the fastest,
TopAdvert.net
smallest, or cheapest? Have you proven it, right there on the web page? Orprovided a link or reference verifying that it is so? This is extremelyimportant. More so for your prospective customers than Google’s staff!
Relevance, Clarity, and Accuracy“Relevance” and “accuracy” refer to how well your ad copy matches what’son your landing page. “Clarity” covers a wider variety of sins you’ll need toavoid, including:
Missing lines of textExcessive spacing“Commonly accepted grammar” (This is Google’s exact wording,implying that they’ll allow a modicum of imperfect grammar.)
Generic call-to-action phrases (such as “click here” or “+1”).Using characters for anything other than their intended or usualmeaning. For example, the greater-than “>” symbol is fine if you’reusing it to indicate that something actually is greater than somethingelse, but you can’t use it as an arrow
Words in all-capitalsBad spellingRepetition. For example, “Buy! Buy! Buy!” would be flagged asunacceptable
Follow the above guidelines when you build your ads, and you’ll be fine99 percent of the time. Still, be sure and visit the AdWords Policy Centerpage and review their directions.
DISAPPROVED ADSYou’ll jump through all the hoops, follow every guideline you know of, andstill end up with one or more of your ads disapproved by Google. Such is lifefor the AdWords advertiser.
Don’t worry: it’s not the end of the world. You just need to find out thereason for Google’s disapproval and then take the steps to fix it.
Disapproved ads are flagged in the Status column of the Ads tab (and as
TopAdvert.net
an alert in the notifications icon.) A message next to your ad will say“Disapproved,” and under that, you’ll see the reason for the disapprovedstatus.
You may need to revisit Google’s AdWords Policy Center page forclarification. Most of the time, however, the problem is one of the following:
Problem: The ad has breached one of Google’s “EditorialGuidelines.”Solution: Rewrite the ad and resave.
Problem: The page that your ad’s URL points to doesn’t exist(commonly known as a 404 error).Solution: Recreate the page or change the URL on the ad so it pointsto a working page.
Problem: Your site has been suspended.Solution: This is a more serious issue that will probably strikemultiple Ad Groups simultaneously. You’ll want to contact Google assoon as possible to find out the cause. You can call the toll-freenumber from your within your account, you can complete the contactform at http://support.google.com/adwords, or you can look for theHelp link in your account and find the online chat feature. (This lastoption is usually the best solution as, in our experience, the staff thatmanage the online chats seem to be more qualified to help with thisparticular problem.)
Some People Never Have These Problems at AllIf what you sell is “boring”—if you sell hydraulic presses, or industrial
TopAdvert.net
chemicals, or shipping containers, or lawn care—you will probably neverhave any of these problems. Eighty percent of the people who run afoul ofGoogle’s rules sell things that are in some sense controversial.
Google Can Be OpaqueTo be frank, Google sometimes simply will not tell you what you need to doto be OK or to get your ads approved. I suspect that the real reason for this isthat if they help you too much, a U.S. judge may consider them complicit inyour “scam,” even though you are not in any way, shape, or form a scammer.In some categories, you’re guilty until proven innocent.
There is a hidden advantage to this. The advantage is: the red tape thinsthe herd so the spoils are divided among a much smaller number of winnerswho can brave the bureaucracy. If you can solve this, the rewards are great.
There is also a huge lesson in this. At the beginning of our AdWordsPersonal Coaching program, where we walk people through the wholeprocess from first click to final upsell, I warn students: “If one year from nowyou’re getting 90 percent of your traffic from Google, I have failed to do myjob. The real goal is to use Google as the anvil that you test your traffic on, soyou can get lots of forms of traffic to convert. Then you go to Facebook,email lists, affiliates, SEO, and offline traffic sources. You diversify so youare no longer dependent on Google. Then, and only then, do you have a ‘real’business.”
SEE IN ADVANCE HOW YOUR ADS WILL LOOKON THE PREVIEW PAGE
If you want to write great ads, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Thesimplest, clearest, and most truthful ads are almost always the ones that endup winning in split tests.
For inspiration, try Google’s Ad Preview tool, which lets you see howyour ads will appear on search pages. It will also show the ads yourcompetitors are running. Go to the “Tools” section of your AdWords accountand select “Ad Preview and Diagnosis.”
From there, simply enter your chosen keywords to see which ads are
TopAdvert.net
running.Sure, you could just visit Google in your browser and perform a search.
But the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool allows you to select different versionsof Google, different languages, different locations, and even different devicesto see which ads are targeting different profiles.
SYSTEMATICALLY GROW YOUR CTR WITHSPLIT TESTINGSplit testing is not new. History’s first split tester was likely a forward-thinking stone-age real estate agent testing the difference between signs thatsaid “Cave for Sale” and “Buy Cave Here.”
However, the world’s first split-testing maniac we know of was E.Haldeman-Julius, a multimillionaire of the 1920s and one of the largestpublishers in the U.S.
Haldeman-Julius’s empire was built through the sale of little blue booksthat covered all manner of different subjects. Close to 2,000 different titleswere produced during his reign as a publishing magnate. He had a uniqueselling method, which illustrates why he was so successful: he wouldpurchase full-page newspaper and magazine ads where he would list up to200 of his available blue book titles. For just one dollar, readers could select20 titles from the list and have them mailed out directly.
That sales technique was unique enough as it is. But what really set Juliusapart was he used this approach to split-test the titles of his books: If aparticular title was selling poorly, he would simply change its name in futureads and watch to see if this generated more sales.
The difference in sales simply by changing the title on the cover wasoften striking. Gautier’s Fleece of Gold, for instance, only sold around 6,000books. Changing the title to A Quest for a Blonde Mistress resulted in sales ofnearly 50,000. The title Patent Medicine only sold a few thousand copies, butchanging it to The Truth About Patent Medicine tripled sales.
The most striking example is no doubt The Art of Controversy, whichonly sold a few hundred copies. When it was renamed to How to ArgueLogically, it went on to sell 30,000!
In this, we see the method, and the power, of split-testing. Note that
TopAdvert.net
everything about the content and jacket design of Haldeman-Julius’s booksremained the same. The only element that changed was the title. As thenumbers show, that alone meant the difference between a flop and abestseller.
It’s a pretty good bet that Haldeman-Julius would have adored Googleadvertising. In his day, split testing took ages: Once a title change wasconceived and selected, it would be weeks, maybe months before the new adswent to print, purchase orders came in, and the staff could total the resultingsales figures. PPC is a whole new world by comparison: you can set up a splittest and begin running ads in a matter of minutes. You can pick a winner in amatter of days, sometimes hours.
The lesson here? As a new AdWords advertiser, make this commitmentto yourself: every new ad group you ever create will have two ads. Onceyou’ve set up an ad group with ads to run against each other, just keep an eyeon their performance. Once you have a clear winner, pause the losing ad, andwrite a new one to test against the winner.
Eight Winning Headlines
If you’re short on ideas for different ad headlines to test, hereare the eight most popular title prefixes from E. Haldeman-Julius’s empire for you to borrow from:
1. How to . . .2. The Art of . . .3. The Little Secret That . . .4. The Truth About . . .5. The Facts About . . .6. The History of . . .7. The Story of . . .8. The Key to . . .
TopAdvert.net
Uncle Claude Sez
The uninformed would be staggered to know the amount of workinvolved in a single ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The ad seems sosimple—and it must be simple to appeal to simple people. But behindthat ad may lie reams of data, volumes of information, and months ofresearch.
So this is no lazy man’s field.
TopAdvert.net
O
Chapter 7
Campaign Settings
nce, I did a consult with a customer who was buying tons of traffic andspending a small fortune. As far as anyone could possibly tell, he had
chosen superb keywords. People who searched on those keywords bought,but he was spending tons of money and getting no sales.
The reason he asked for the consult was, he couldn’t seem to find his adsanywhere, even though Google said he was in position three!
What was going on?I started investigating. Turns out he’d somehow switched his campaigns
from “United States” to “All Countries.” His average position was three, buthe was actually number one in Pakistan and number 42 in the U.S. Heprobably wasn’t number three anywhere.
Sure, there was lots of traffic from Pakistan and India and a dozen othercountries. But none from buyers with credit cards and valid shippingaddresses.
One quick fix and problem solved. Just like that.Fact: Changing one small setting can radically alter the profitability of
your campaigns. For better or for worse.But wait a minute, you say—a Google campaign has dozens of different
little settings you can tweak or alter! How do you know how to launch a newcampaign with the exact right settings in place?
We’ve already shown you how to create a new campaign from scratch.This chapter introduces you to a host of strategic bells and whistles and how
TopAdvert.net
to set them up right.
THE PERFECT SETTINGS FOR A NEWCAMPAIGNWithin your AdWords account, head over to the Campaigns tab and find thebig blue “+” button.
You’ll get a lot of different options thrown at you, but we’ll show youhere what the main settings are that you need to focus on. And don’t worry—you can adjust or reset most of these settings later.
Campaign TypeYou have five options for new campaigns:
1. Search network2. Display network3. Shopping4. Video5. Universal app
If you’re a first-time user, start with the first option, “Search network.”This is the most straightforward approach and is the area you should belooking to master before branching out into other areas of Google’s networks.
Next, choose “All Features.” (Don’t leave your campaign set to“Standard.”) This will ensure that you have full access to every setting andfeature later on.
TopAdvert.net
Campaign NameChoose a name that is meaningful and useful to you.
Choice of NetworksWe’ve dedicated all of Chapter 22 to Google’s Search Partner Network. Fornow, turn this off so that your ads will show only on Google’s main searchpages, such as Google.com, Google.co.uk, etc.
DeviceAds will show on all eligible devices by default. You’re not able to adjustthat here; this is done later, once your campaign is set up.
LocationAs tempting as it may be to broadcast your ads across the entire world, it’smuch easier to start with a single location and expand from there as yourclickthrough rates and conversion rates improve. Choose the single countrythat represents your main target audience. Or, if you’re a local business,choose the town or city that you serve.
It’s possible to be more specific with your location targeting and evenexclude ads from showing in certain locations. However, leave this on thedefault setting for now. You can always come back and change it later.
Language
TopAdvert.net
The “language” of the users is dictated by the language that their browser isset to. Again, don’t try to reach the world with your first campaign; choosethe main language(s) of your primary market only. If, for example, yourmarket is the UK, then choose English. If it’s Canada, go for both French andEnglish.
Bid StrategyThe default option is “I will manually set my bids,” and this is the setting youshould start with for now. You can look over the advanced options later.
Default BidThis option allows you to tell Google the maximum amount you’re preparedto pay for a single click. This is tricky, especially if you’re just starting out:you may not yet be 100 percent settled on an answer to this question. Youcan and will adjust this multiple times over the coming weeks and months, sodon’t worry about trying to find the perfect number. Just pick a sensiblestarting point. If you’re unsure, start with $1.00. You can change it later.
Daily BudgetGoogle has a very specific goal: They want to spend 30.4 times your dailybudget each month. This is a fact. Sure, your daily spend will be a bit higheron some days and lower on others, but by month’s end it will even itself out.
Again, you can change this setting later. So choose what you think is asensible starting point that won’t melt your credit card. We encourage ourstudents to start with $10 per day. That ensures that their overall spend won’texceed $304 per month until they’re ready to increase their budget.
Delivery MethodYou have two options for how Google spends your daily budget:
1. Standard. This spreads out your ad spend evenly over 24 hours.
TopAdvert.net
2. Accelerated. Starting at 12:01 A.M., Google will show your adsquickly, even if it means you hit your daily budget before sunrise.
“Standard” is usually the best option, unless you have a very high dailybudget. With “Accelerated” Google will stop showing your ads early in theday if you’ve met your budget. That could be a problem if, for example, allyour best prospects go online only in the evening.
ExtensionsYou will be invited to add ad extensions at this stage; pass on this for now.(See Chapter 13.)
MORE SETTINGS TO SAVE YOU MONEY ANDINCREASE CLICKSOnce your campaign is running, you can adjust any of the above options.You’ll also find some additional settings that are available to tweak.
Start and End DatesTypically, you can leave this setting alone. But if you’re running a time-sensitive promotion, set an end date here. That way you won’t have toremember to turn your ads off.
When to Leave Ad Scheduling Alone
A common mistake among AdWords users is to assume thatpeople only shop and buy from them at certain times of the dayor week and to set up aggressive ad scheduling in their accountto show ads only at those times.
If the call to action on your landing page is to telephone your
TopAdvert.net
business, and that line is only open during office hours, then itmay make sense to set the scheduling to only show your adsbetween 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. However, if you’re selling onlineand can take orders 24/7, leave ad scheduling alone. Trafficvolume may ramp up from early morning and slow down lateat night, but conversion rates will generally remain consistent.
It will depend on your market, but if anything, conversion ratesare higher during the evening as people are casually surfing ontheir phone or tablet during TV commercial breaks and takingadvantage of the downtime to catch up on their onlineshopping.
SchedulingThe most common use of scheduling is to turn off your ads at certain times ofthe day, or even entire days of the week. That’s a powerful money saver ifyou know that there are certain times where you’ll burn through your budgetif you let your ads show.
However, we recommend you leave this setting alone to begin with.While your number of impressions and clicks may vary quite a bit dependingon the time or day, conversion rates are usually consistent. Once you’vegathered a significant amount of data on your campaign, then and only then,would you have good reason to make adjustments.
You can also use this setting to specify an end date for your campaign.This is useful if you sell a product or service that’s only relevant to a specifictime of year, such as snow shovels, lawn mowers, or Valentine’s Day-themedgifts.
Ad RotationGoogle wants some amount of control over the split-testing you do. If theysee an ad getting significantly more clicks than another, they’ll want to showit more often. This is understandable; they get paid for the clicks. But that
TopAdvert.net
isn’t helpful for you as a conscientious PPC marketer who stays on top ofyour ad performance, frequently runs multiple split-tests, and wants controlover the process.
Here are your options:
Optimize for clicks. Google will calculate the winner of a split test asquickly as possible and begin showing the better-performing ad morefrequently.
Optimize for conversions. This is only an option if you’re usingconversion tracking, a subject for another chapter.
Rotate evenly for 90 days and then optimize.Rotate indefinitely.
We recommend you choose the last option: rotate indefinitely. It’s theonly way to be sure that each ad you split-test gets an equal amount of traffic.It makes for truer winners and losers. The other options are well-intentioned,but they can sometimes skew the data. Rotating your ads indefinitely means itwill take longer for you to get a demonstrable result, but it’s necessary if youwant to get the maximum possible return on your PPC investment.
Dynamic Search AdsSee Chapter 27.
Campaign URL optionsThis is for advanced tracking and is beyond the scope of this book.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYCreate a new campaign and select your settings carefully.If you have an existing campaign, review your settings and lookthrough some of the advanced settings that are available.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 8
The Winning Method the World’sSmartest Marketers Stole from the
Wright Brothers
he boneyard of modern civilization is littered with “great” marketingideas that never got off the ground.
Think of the billions and trillions of dollars companies spent developingproducts, only to find out that their products weren’t what people wanted inthe first place.
Let’s not assume you’re a corporation with billions of dollars to spend.Instead, let’s assume you’re a regular person who quit a cushy job to pursuean entrepreneurial vision. As you calculate it, you’ve got to start making aprofit in six to nine months or else you’ll run out of money.
If that’s you, then you can’t afford to make a mistake. You can’t spendthree months developing a product and later find out in month six that theproduct has to be totally redesigned. That’ll kill your business and send youback to the J.O.B. with your tail between your legs.
Let’s make sure this never happens to you.How can you prevent this? By testing your product idea and even your
website itself on the cheap, using Google, before you’ve spent a lot of moneyon it. With the internet, you can find out if a product idea will succeed or failfor a few hundred to no more than a few thousand dollars.
TopAdvert.net
If you do this, you will be sure that the product you develop will be wellreceived.
HOW THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ SAVVYTESTING METHOD MADE THEM “FIRST INFLIGHT”The year: 1903. The place: a houseboat on the Potomac River, USA.
Just weeks before Wilbur and Orville Wright were to fly the world’s firstairplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Samuel Pierpont Langley, a well-funded engineer and inventor, was launching an airplane of his own—withthe assistance of an entire staff.
Langley’s assumption: put a big enough engine on the thing, and it willfly. He focused all his effort on that one project: creating an engine powerfulenough for the plane to go airborne. On October 7, 1903, Langley tested hismodel for the very first time.
TopAdvert.net
The plane crashed immediately after leaving the launch pad, badlydamaging the front wing.
Two months later, just eight days before the Wright brothers’ successfulflight, Langley made a second attempt.
This time the tail and rear wing collapsed completely during launch.Langley was ridiculed by the press and criticized by members of
Congress for throwing away taxpayer dollars on his failed projects. (Can youimagine the cynicism? I’m sure many sneering reporters believed that nobodycould or would ever fly.) Disillusioned by the public response, Langleyabandoned his vision.
Wilbur and Orville Wright, meanwhile, had a completely differentapproach: build a glider that would glide from a hilltop with no engine at all.They focused their energy on balance and steering. Power was almost anafterthought. Only after the glider worked by itself would they try to put anengine on it.
Wright brothers and glider
After three years of tedious experimentation, the glider was working well,so they commissioned bicycle shop machinist Charlie Taylor to build them anengine. It was the smallest engine he could design—a 12-horsepower unitthat weighed 180 pounds.
TopAdvert.net
And on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur andOrville Wright made history.
The Wright brothers changed the world and became famous historicalfigures, while few have ever heard of Mr. Langley. Their approach of makingthe plane fly before applying high power was the winning idea.
Langley had spent most of four years building an extraordinaryengine to lift the heavy flying machine. The Wrights had spent most offour years building a flying machine so artfully designed that it couldbe propelled into the air by a fairly ordinary internal combustionengine.
—Smithsonian, April 2003
Skill comes by the constant repetition of familiar feats rather than bya few overbold attempts at feats for which the performer is yet poorlyprepared.
—Wilbur Wright
Samuel Pierpont Langley died in 1906, a broken and disappointed man.
PEOPLE WHO TEST, FLY. PEOPLE WHO RELYON BRUTE FORCE, DIE.You don’t want to die a broke and disappointed person. You want to die richand famous.
Or at least rich, right?Then, there is a direct comparison between the Wright brothers and your
career as an internet marketer.The search engine is the motor. Your website is the glider.A motor without a good set of wings does you no good. When you put an
engine on a glider, you have a plane. When you feed traffic to a website thatcan “fly,” you have a business.
And as smart marketers like “Uncle” Claude Hopkins have known for
TopAdvert.net
over a century, you get the wings to work through careful, systematic testing.This is not a new concept. For more than 100 years, smart, savvy
marketers have followed these time-tested principles of proven good senseand made their dollars go many times further.
In 1923, Claude Hopkins said:
Advertising and merchandising become exact sciences. Every courseis charted. The compass of accurate knowledge directs the shortest,safest, cheapest course to any destination.
We learn the principles and prove them by repeated tests. . . . Wecompare one way with many others, backward and forwards, andrecord the results. . . .
Advertising is traced down to the fraction of a penny. The cost perreply and cost per dollar of sale show up with utter exactness.
One ad compared to another, one method with another. Headlines,settings, sizes, arguments, and pictures are compared. To reduce thecost of results even 1 percent means much.
So no guesswork is permitted. One must know what is best.
Building a business online doesn’t have to be guesswork. It’s not acrapshoot. It’s a science. Wise men and women before us have taken therisks, tested the limits, learned the hard lessons for us, and laid down a clearpath that we can follow with confidence.
Whether your business is all online or only partly so, the foundationremains the same: start small, test carefully, make modest improvements, getdeeper insights into your market, test some more, and you’ll know that yourbusiness is going to grow.
This well-worn path builds a sales process that works. And when youhave a persuasive website, you have a glider. Just like the Wright brothers, allyou need to do is put a lightweight engine on it, and you can fly.
Add Google traffic the smart way, and you’ve got a business that soars.Google AdWords can bring you a lot of traffic, and that traffic is valuable
to the extent that your website can convert the traffic to leads and sales.
TopAdvert.net
When you’re getting started, Google is like a lightweight engine that youcan turn on and off instantly. You can test your glider safely withoutcrashing, killing a potential joint venture partnership, or blowing a wad ofmoney.
MARKETING MISERY: NOT NECESSARYThousands of people go to bed every night wondering Why? Why can’t Imake any sales? Why can’t I earn any real money at this?
This is not necessary, but it’s a lesson that the scorched dotcoms in 1997–2000 learned the hard way. They were like Langley. They focused on theengine instead of the wings. When it didn’t take off, they just poured moregas into the engine. When that didn’t work, they put it on a rocket launcherand forced it up into the air.
You don’t have the time or the money to pour into product ideas and salesmessages that, in hindsight, were “almost right.” Your spouse won’t let youblow the grocery money or college savings on a lark.
Reality is a great teacher if you let it speak its piece. The people whoclick on your ads will tell you what they want if you ask them. They’ll showyou what they want if you watch them.
Uncle Claude Sez
The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached thestatus of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonablyexact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are wellunderstood. The correct method of procedure has been proved andestablished. We know what is most effective, and we act on its basic
TopAdvert.net
law.
Once a gamble, advertising has become, under able direction, one ofthe safest business ventures to undertake. Certainly no other enterprisewith comparable possibilities need involve so little risk.
TopAdvert.net
M
Chapter 9
Vanquish the Thickest Competitionwith a Killer USP
ichael Strickland of Boulder, Colorado, runs a company that shipscars across the country. He enrolled in our training course, our 12-
week, hands-on, first-click-to-first-sale marketing funnel improvement lab.Like many people who take this course, he assumed we were just going to go“ninja” to the nth degree on Google ads.
Sure, we did do that, but on the very first live small-group session, I askedhim, “Michael, what is the reason why I should ship my car with yourcompany instead of any and every other company out there?”
Michael didn’t have a solid meaty answer to my question. Sure, he ran agood company, and they delivered quality and good service and all that. Butit was a deer-in-the-headlights moment because he didn’t have a definitiveanswer.
My response was, “Michael, you must create a great answer to thatquestion.” So we started building his unique selling proposition (USP)together. Two weeks later, Michael emerged with a powerful new USP andhis “Damage Free Guarantee,” which you can see on his website today atwww.ShipACarDirect.com.
That was the tipping point of Michael’s business. His sales doubled in sixmonths. Yes, all his experiments and optimization of Google ads were helpfuland necessary. But his ads didn’t light on fire until his USP was solid. Oncehe had a terrific answer to “Why should I buy from you?” customers started
TopAdvert.net
responding, and the business went supernova.The business ventures that fail the fastest in the marketplace are the ones
that have no USP. The businesses that have their USP crisply and clearlydefined acquire customers and grow.
What is a USP?It stands for unique selling proposition. It’s the “thing” that makes you
unique in the marketplace—it’s what customers can get from you that theycan’t find anyplace else. You can also call it your “unique selling position” or“value proposition.”
Having a clear USP gives you a clear response for these questions:
How are you unique?In what way are you different from your competitors?Why should I buy from you, rather than from someone else?Why should I care at all about you or anything you sell?
The term came from Rosser Reeves (1910–1984). He was a pioneer in theuse of television ads, and he wrote Reality in Advertising, one of the mostsought-after advertising books of the last century. (Try finding a physicalcopy of Reeves’s book anywhere for less than $100.)
His message on USPs was simple:
Your ad has to have some way of clearly saying, “Buy this product,and you will get this specific benefit.”
Your promise has to be one that your competitor cannot or does notoffer.
Your promise has to win over new customers.
You see, a USP is worthless if it doesn’t actually convince people to buyfrom you. USP is the knife-edge of your chisel. A power USP empowers youto “Chisel Your Way In” anytime, anywhere. If you’re not getting enoughtraction, sharpen your USP.
In this chapter, I’m going to give you a method for defining your USP.And I’m going to give you a simple approach for how to test elements ofyour USP in your Google ads and find what gets you the strongest response.
TopAdvert.net
SIX ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A POWER USPAny time you’re communicating with a prospect, you can appeal to any oneof these or all of them together:
1. You’re unique because of the buyer you serve.2. You’re unique because of what you sell.3. You’re unique because you have an unusual angle.4. You’re unique because of what your product or service does not do.5. You’re unique because of the time frame around your offer.6. You’re unique because of how you guarantee your product.
How many of these elements are already true of you? Or what can youchange, shift, or alter in your business so that any or all of these elementsbecome true of you?
We’ll explore these one at a time with examples of how each one mightlook in a Google ad.
You’re Unique Because of the Buyer Your ServeYour business gets traction when you zero in on a niche. Maybe you targetpeople of a specific demographic—a certain age, gender, income level, orreligious or political leaning. Or maybe you solve a very specific kind ofproblem—a rare health issue or a peculiar type of software malfunction.Maybe you cater to a particular hobby. If you’re in B2B, there might be aspecific narrow vertical you serve or a particular stripe of business owner.Maybe you only work with companies of ten employees or less.
In extremely rare cases, you could be unique because there’s no limit towho you serve. For example:
My hiring and recruiting system is unique because it works forvirtually any position in any business, anywhere—from theecommerce business in the UK to the information marketer inChicago to the nursing station in the Australian outback.
—Nancy Slessenger, Vinehouse.co.uk
TopAdvert.net
Test the unique-buyer approach in your ads. Whether you serve a uniquedemographic:
Meet Singles Your AgeWe’re an over-50 dating sitemade for older singles.beyond50.com
Or you help people with a unique struggle:
Beat ProcrastinationIf you’ve tried everything else &failed, my method is for you.pjeby.com
Or you focus on a unique niche:
Proven ROI Web DesignResults-accountable website designuniquely for ecommerce businesses.trueroiwebdesign.com
You’re Unique Because of What You SellDo you offer a service where others only offer a product? Do you offer aproduct where everyone else is selling services?
Are you the thing for sale, as a skilled technician, consultant, coach, orperformer? Are you the entertaining or compelling personality that makes thebusiness what it is?
If so, beat your drum. Having a story to tell will instantly separate youfrom the herd. Perry has made a name for his business by telling his unusualstory:
“How an Inexperienced 29-Year-Old Punk Ignored All theUsual ‘Marketing Wisdom’—Grew a High-Tech Business2,000 percent in 4 Years, and Sold It for 18 Million
TopAdvert.net
Dollars!”
Test the “unique thing for sale” in your ads. Here are some examples.
A product for sale, instead of a service:
Clogged Drains?Skip the plumber. Fix the problemfor good. This ships in 24 hours.xyzdrainmagic.com
You for sale, with a unique story:
Social Media Done RightCanada’s only social media expertrunning his own 8-figure business.camediapower.com
You’re Unique Because You’ve Found an Unusual AngleThere are so many “angles” you can use to separate yourself fromcompetitors. Here are just a few:
You promise a unique and specific outcome.You have a noteworthy track record.You have an unusual level of quality.The experience of doing business with you is one of a kind.You offer a unique payment plan.
This ad celebrates a track record:
Iron-Clad BackupA record 7 years without a systemfailure. Reliability you crave.abcbackupsystems.com
TopAdvert.net
You can use acronyms and proprietary labels for products you sell andmethods you use that get results. That approach always gets people to sit upand take notice. This business owner does just that. Try testing a similarconcept in your ads:
Jazz Mandolin Made EasierUnlock the “mystery” of jazz withour one-of-a-kind FFcP method.jazzmando.com
You’re Unique Because of What Your Product or ServiceDoes Not DoWe call these “negative promises.” They’re just as powerful as positivepromises, often more so.
Maybe there’s some unwanted ingredient or feature your product doesn’thave. Maybe there’s a bad result you prevent. Maybe there’s someprerequisite for effectiveness that your product lets users bypass. Maybe yourproduct avoids cost or waste.
This example ad captures the “negative promise” concept perfectly. Trytesting one like it for your business:
Reduce Carpel Tunnel 50%No office visits. No physicaltherapy. No painful surgery.ctstherapysolution.com
You’re Unique Because of the Time Frame of Your OfferYou can promise results within a set amount of time or for a set amount oftime. The question is, how specific can you actually get? The more explicityou are, the better your ads will perform.
Fast Corn ReliefCorns gone in 5 days or money back.
TopAdvert.net
Easy-to-use Kit.cornssolvedforgood.com
Install 1 MegaFilter andKeep your home free of pollen &allergens for 6 full months.supermegafilter.com
Ads that use specific number symbols perform better. It’s practically anironclad law. There are two reasons why: 1) the brain processes the numbersymbol faster than written words, and 2) numbers make your messagespecific.
Prospects love promises that are specific, clear, and unmistakable. ClaudeHopkins explains:
The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making itspecific. Say that a tungsten lamp gives more light than a carbon oneand you leave some doubt. Say it gives three and one-third times thelight and people realize that you have made tests and comparisons.
You’re Unique Because of How You Guarantee YourProductGive your offer an “or else”—a penalty to you if you don’t deliver. Refundyour customer’s money. Replace your product. Redo your service.
Test a guarantee in your ad like this:
I Get You the Right HireOr I redo the entire recruitingprocess, any time within 1 year.vinehouse.com/recruitment/
The more ballsy and specific you make it, the more your prospects will situp and take notice:
“Double your money back”
TopAdvert.net
“Triple your money back”“Your money back plus $1,000”“We’ll refund your money and pay our competitor to come in and giveyou a replacement.”
Combine your “or else” with a specific time promise, and your messagehas power. How’s this for a specific, ballsy promise?
Our Plumber Comes on TimeIf we’re not on time, we pay you $5per minute late up to $300.benjaminfranklinplumbing.com
A Killer Strategy for Generating Sales Leads
Are you trying to “chisel your way in”? Your business musthave a great USP—and so should the very first offer you use toattract attention. For decades, direct marketers taught you tooffer free reports and white papers. “Free report: How to cutyour back pain in half in 15 minutes or less.”
Those still work, and perhaps to an extent, they always will.But the amount of value you have to offer to get someone’semail address, to get them to raise their hand, has risenexponentially as the web has matured. That “free report”strategy is tired at best, obsolete at worst. Many times it simplydoes not stand out at all. Everyone has a free report. Everyonehas a free video. You can see that by scanning yourcompetitors’ ads.
A much less common strategy that works quite well is what Icall the Disqualification Approach: offer some kind of toolbuilt to help many of your visitors figure out that they are not
TopAdvert.net
your customer. Let me explain.
When we wrote the first Ultimate Guide to FacebookAdvertising a few years ago, I was concerned that most peoplewho bought the book would eventually figure out Facebookwas not for them. At the time, Facebook’s ad platform wasprimitive, and Facebook was not even appropriate for 60 to 80percent of businesses at all. (That has since changed.) I didn’twant people buying my book and giving it two stars onAmazon because their ads were a failure.
So we created a tool, www.IsFBforMe.com. It scores peoplefrom 1 to 10 based on ten easy-to-answer questions. After theyget their score, they can enter their email address to get acustomized report that explains their score.
If people get a score of less than six, we tell them to not evenbother with Facebook.
This works extremely well. It gets lots of sales leads for us, andthey’re qualified sales leads because most of them are peoplewith high scores. The fact that we actively push people awaywho are not good customers adds tremendous credibility whenwe tell someone, “Yes, indeed, you should invest in Facebookadvertising and education.”
When you build a tool like this, if it doesn’t disqualify asignificant number of people who use it, the tool is wrong andyour sales pitch is wrong. As I preach in my book 80/20 Sales& Marketing, sales is first and foremost a DIS-qualificationprocess. Most people are not right for you. So, get rid of themat the outset.
A Disqualifier Lead Generation Magnet Helps You WriteBetter AdsWhich of these ads would you rather click on?
TopAdvert.net
Facebook Ads are HotDiscover the Secrets to MasteryFree Online Training Videowww.perrymarshall.com/facebook
Or
Is Facebook for You?Before (!) You Squander Time & MoneyTake This Free 60 Second Quizwww.IsFBforMe.com
Consider these two ads in terms of the offer. Which offer ismore appealing? Which one promises you the most immediategratification and appeal? This is a huge aspect of Google ads. Itwould be very rare for a training video to go viral, but ourIsFBforME.com quiz went viral; in fact, many bloggers andauthority sites happily recommend it.
Ultimately, the offer your ad describes is more important thanthe words you use to describe it. What does your customer getby clicking on your ad? And how fast do they get it? How fastwill it make a difference in their life?
This deserves serious thought and, most of all, seriousexperimentation!
Your mission: Test as many of these concepts in your Google ads as youcan find the time for. Some will completely tank. Plan on it. But somewhereamong these USP concepts will be a new winning ad and a new, proven wayfor you to approach your prospects, regardless of what media you use.
That is how you hammer out your USP in the crucible of the marketplace.
TopAdvert.net
Uncle Claude Sez
A person who desires to make an impression must stand out in someway. Being eccentric, being abnormal is not a distinction to covet. Butdoing admirable things in a different way gives one a great advantage.So with salesmen, in person or in print. . . .
There is refreshing uniqueness, which enhances, which we welcomeand remember. Fortunate is the salesman who has it.
TopAdvert.net
R
Chapter 10
Conversion TrackingHow to Know Where Every Penny You
Spend Is Going
elying solely on your gut instinct can kill your PPC results. In thischapter, we’ll show you how to make solid decisions based on hard data
by setting up your conversion tracking right the first time. We’ll also showyou how to use a thank-you page to welcome new customers and createupsells.
A few years ago, before Google’s conversion tracking was as sophisticated asit is today, my team and I had determined that a certain keyword was a greattarget keyword for us. We fed $15,000 a month into that ad campaign foryears.
I brought on a new marketing manager, Jack Born. Jack did more conversiontracking, and one day he called me.
“Hey, Perry, you know that one ad campaign? I don’t think it’s bringingyou any paying customers. I think you’re only getting tire kickers from thatkeyword.”
This was totally counterintuitive. We were getting lots of email signupsand, in fact, lots of customers.
Jack said, “I carefully connected the dots and I don’t think this is thething that’s paying your bills. Let’s pause that campaign and see what
TopAdvert.net
happens to our sales.”So, with fear and trepidation, we paused $15,000 per month of traffic.Sales did not change one iota.Dang. We must have spent $300,000 on traffic that wasn’t even
converting at all.Ugh! Ever wish you could get $300,000 back?Well . . . if you’re not tracking conversions from click, to sales lead, to
sale, then odds are 80 percent of your traffic is not converting to sales andyou don’t know it.
If that’s the case, you might as well find out right now!What’s the difference between a novice airplane pilot and a veteran? Ask
any expert and they’ll tell you: A beginner relies on sight and gut feeling,while an experienced professional relies on instruments.
This is counterintuitive. You might think experienced pilots withthousands of hours of airtime would reach the point where they could ignoreinstruments and fly on instinct. Quite the opposite. Novice pilots areunfamiliar with the complex range of cockpit instruments and are naturallyinclined to use their basic senses. Veteran pilots, on the other hand, knowyour senses can deceive you, and so can your gut. The instruments are farless likely to give you faulty information.
Marketers have the same challenge. How do you know which of youradvertising dollars are going to come back with friends attached?
Those of us who have been doing advertising the longest are by far themost vulnerable. We sit down to write a new ad or create a new offer, and wethink we know what will get clicks, what will sell, and what won’t.
But forecasting markets and predicting buyer behavior is nearlyimpossible. Worse still, knowing which keywords, ad groups, and campaignsare bringing/will bring us the best-paying customers can be an opaque,complete black box.
Truly experienced marketers create campaigns with the understandingthat nobody knows what truly works until the target audience has cast theirvote. And nobody knows which advertising dollars are creating the best returnuntil we’ve looked at the hard data.
Google gets this. Their conversion-tracking tools are engineered such thatyou don’t have to guess what’s working and what isn’t. The “instruments” inthe AdWords interface let you measure every last every bit of prospect and
TopAdvert.net
buyer activity in precise detail. With this in place, even the smallest businesscan go head-to-head against large competitors knowing exactly where theiradvertising dollars are having the greatest impact.
Google’s conversion tracking can break down your numbers and tell youwhere each conversion came from. It can even show you the journey yourvisitors took to find you. Most importantly, it shows you where the waste is.
Do you want to know how to see exactly where your dollars are going?This chapter will show you. We’ll start by looking over the options you haveavailable, and then we’ll walk you through a specific example of how itworks.
THE FOUR TYPES OF CONVERSIONS YOU’LLWANT TO TRACKFor every business owner, “conversion” can refer to a number of differentactions that a prospect or customer might take. Some are more valuable thanothers:
To a blogger, it might be a visitor reading at least three posts.To a service provider, it might be a visitor picking up the phone orcompleting a registration form.
To an ecommerce site owner, it might be a visitor making an onlinepurchase of $100 or more.
Google makes it easy to track all of these and more. There are fouressential types of conversions you’ll want to consider.
1. Track When Someone Lands on a Specific PageThis includes the person who sees your thank-you page after completing yournewsletter signup form or the buyer who arrives at your download page afterpurchasing your software.
This is the most common type of conversion tracking and the most basic.It’s worth knowing how to set it up. We’ll give you an example later in thischapter on how to do just that.
TopAdvert.net
2. Track When Someone Calls You After Seeing Your Ador Visiting Your SiteAccording to one survey, 70 percent of mobile users at some time or anotherhave seen an advertiser’s phone number on a Google results page and calledit.
Putting your phone number in a Google ad is a strategy that works,especially if your number is “click-to-call.” Best of all, it’s easy for Google totrack.
To learn how to set up phone-call tracking, you can review the section onAd Extensions in Chapter 7, “Campaign Settings,” and Chapter 13,“Supercharge Your Clickthrough Rates with Ad Extensions.” That said, thereare a couple of tracking options we’ll share with you here.
One is to swap your regular phone number for a Google forwardingnumber. That way any time a person calls the forwarding number, you getcredited with a conversion, whether they saw the number in your ad or onyour website.
This is only available in certain countries (check the Google website tosee if it is available in your country), but if you’re able to take advantage ofthis, you get access to better reporting. You can even specify to Google thatonly calls of a certain length will count as a conversion.
The two main benefits are that 1) it’s free—Google will create as manynumbers that you need plus as you need, and they don’t charge you for thecalls), and 2) it integrates perfectly with the AdWords system.
There are also a few third-party tracking options you can try. Oneexample is DialogTech (www.dialogtech.com, formerly IfByPphone). Thisare particularly popular in the U.S. There are other good call-trackingservices available that you can find by searching online. The main benefits ofthese are that they track multiple sources other than AdWords—i.e., you willhave separate numbers for your Facebook, email, and organic traffic. In eachcase, the system is more robust, but you will pay for each phone number andfor each call.
You’re no longer allowed to just write out your actual phone number inthe text of your ad. Instead, Google’s other methods give you three options:
1. Call Extensions or Call-Only Ads let you display a phone number in
TopAdvert.net
your ad, be it on desktop, tablet, or mobile. We’ll discuss these inmore detail in Chapter 13 on ad extensions. Or use call-only ads—tobe discussed in Chapter 27 on special campaign types—to show aphone number in your ad (be it on desktop, tablet or mobile).
2. You can display a Google tracking number on your website. Ifsomeone clicks through to your website site from an AdWords ad,you can track phone calls that happen as a result of that AdWordsvisit. You need to do this to know the full value of AdWords;otherwise, you are only looking at half the picture if you are justtracking website form fills, for an example. So many businesses getthe majority of their leads or sales via telephone, so it’s important totrack this method, which allows you to connect the dots fromincoming calls back to your AdWords campaigns.
3. Call-On-Site Calls on your mobile site. It’s relatively new. With thisfeature, a mobile user can see your phone number marked in blue onyour page on your mobile site and can click on it to call you, and youget credited with the conversion. You keep your current phonenumber, and Google tracks both your clicks and your calls. (Thismethod requires that you add a piece of code to your website.)
Either of these options is excellent. You may also want to try some third-party tracking options. DialogTech is an example of this and is popular in theU.S. There are other good call-tracking services available that you can findby searching online.
3. Track When a Person Downloads Your SoftwareApplicationIf you have an app on Google Play or the Apple’s app store, Google can trackdownloads and count them as conversions. One method is to find the URLfor the app store download page that you want to use and make that thedestination URL of your ad.
If you have an Android app, it’s easy to track app downloads and actions,as this functionality is built into Google’s system and can be set upautomatically to track in-app activity/billing.
TopAdvert.net
If you have an iOS app, there are other options where you’ll need to addsome code inside the app itself. We recommend Firebase, which is a brilliantGoogle analytics tool built specifically for apps and tracking. (It’s the futureof analytics for apps, especially if you are doing any marketing for apps orapp creation; however, it is beyond the scope of this book.)
4. Track Conversions that Happen OfflineWhat if your primary business model involves calling leads and closing thesale over the phone? Google has Offline Conversion Tracking, which lets youconnect sales back to your AdWords accounts.
Imagine you discovered that 80 percent of the leads who arrived fromAdWords ad groups A, B, and C converted to a sale, but only 5 percent of theleads who came through ad groups D, E, or F ended up buying. Thisdiscovery might frustrate you initially, but just think of the leverage that theawareness of it would now give you.
With this kind of conversion tracking, you can know in advance whichleads are most likely to become customers. That could save you hugeamounts on your Google spend, and it could save your sales team tremendousamounts of time and effort.
Offline conversion tracking can be a bit involved, but the effort is worthit. Read about it here: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2998031.
HOW TO SET UP CONVERSION TRACKING THERIGHT WAYLet’s say you run a lead-generation site where a visitor can fill in a form for afree consultation with you and get a free brochure. We’ll walk you throughhow to set up your Google account to track it.
Step One: Create a New Conversion and Name ItFirst, you want to tell Google what kind of conversion you want tracked.Click the three dots at the very top of your AdWords page and select“Conversions.” On the resulting page, click the big blue “+ Conversion”
TopAdvert.net
button.
Next, click the “Website” option since you’re tracking something thathappens on your site.
Google will ask you to name your conversion. Choose a name that tellsyou what the conversion is (e.g., “Opt in for brochure”) and select“Webpage.”
Step Two: Set Your Conversion CategoryYou’ll be asked to choose one of the following categories for yourconversion type:
Purchase saleSign upLeadView of a key pageOther
TopAdvert.net
In this example, “Signup” and “Lead” are probably both applicable, but“Lead” is a little bit more relevant.
Step Three: Set a Conversion ValueIf you’re not running an ecommerce site, you may be tempted to skip thisone. Google will let you do so. But please don’t. Setting a conversion valueright from the beginning, for every conversion-tracking program you set up,is going to make your data far more valuable in the long run.
Don’t think of the conversion value in terms of dollar values. Instead,think of it as a points system that rates the relative value of the different typesof conversions that exist within your business. For example, you can assign50 points to a conversion that involves a visitor completing your quiz but 100points if they complete a “please call me” lead-capture form.
If your site is very basic and only offers one conversion action, then youcan simply set the conversion value as 1.
When it comes to reporting and sifting through your data, setting aconversion value is vitally important. You’ll thank us later.
Note: If you’re an ecommerce site owner, you can set conversion valuesto adjust automatically based on the revenue of each product sold. Talk withyour Google AdWords rep or your web developer if you want to go thisroute. For example, you might sell a range of products varying in prices from$5 to $5,000; you can use the dollar value of the sale as the value of yourconversion goal.
TopAdvert.net
Step Four: Set a Conversion CountThere are two options: you can choose “every” or “one.” (The default is“every.”)
“Every,” as the name would suggest, measures every single sale or lead.“If you were to pick one, then if they did the same thing multiple times, itwould only be one” counting as just one conversion per visitor even if they“convert” multiple times.
Do you want Google to count all conversions in total or only uniqueconversions? In other words, if a person clicks on your ad and then makes apurchase from you every day for the next three days, do you want this to berecorded as one conversion or three?
This will depend on the type of online business you operate. Anecommerce site owner, for instance, will usually want to keep track of everyspecific product purchased. He would select “All Conversions—Every.” Onthe other hand, an information marketer who provides PDFs for downloadmay be more interested in simply knowing the total number of individualswho download one or more items. She would choose “Unique Conversions—One.”
If you’re not sure, go with “All Conversions—Every.” You still get datafor both types. (If you select “Unique Conversions—One,” you get less data,and you can’t change your mind later on without having to delete andrecreate the conversion from scratch.)
TopAdvert.net
Step Five: Set Your Conversion WindowThis indicates how many days or weeks you want Google to keep trackingthe user after they click the first time. The default is 30 days. That’s morethan adequate for this exercise. If a person clicked on your ad but didn’t optin in for your brochure in 30 days’ time, they’re probably not worthfollowing. Unless you have a very good reason for needing a differentconversion window, leave this on the default setting.
For this, you do have eight options available: 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks, or 30,45, 60, or 90 days.
There is also an option to set a window for view-through conversions.This refers to people who saw your ad and didn’t click on it, but instead cameback to your site and converted from another channel, such as an organicsearch. If you have this setting activated, then, for example, by purchasingwithin that 30-day default window, a visitor would be counted as a view-through conversion. However, if your visitor purchases six weeks after thatinitial click, their conversion will not be attributed to that click.
TopAdvert.net
A Word of Warning
Measuring conversion events accurately, and assigning correctvalues to them, is absolutely critical. If you do conversiontracking right, you can make fast, accurate decisions aboutvery complex issues with absolute confidence.
If you measure conversion events wrong (like accidentallycounting one conversion event twice because someone stuck anextra conversion pixel where it didn’t belong) or assign wrongvalues (counting a $10 sale as $25), it’s like an airplane with amalfunctioning altimeter. You think you’re cruising along at20,000 feet when suddenly you smash into the side of amountain.
Your flying is only as accurate as your instruments. Pleaseremember, even the best tracking software only gives you anapproximate, relative answer. The only numbers that are REALare deposits in your bank account. Take extra time at thebeginning to verify that conversions in your ad-tracking systemmatch up to sales in your shopping cart.
Step Six: Decide What to Include in ConversionsYou now get to choose whether a particular conversion type you’re setting upshould be included in the total conversions count. For example, if yours is anecommerce store, you might want to have two conversion actions. One wouldbe every time somebody adds a product to their shopping cart, and anotherone would be for when they buy. If you’re using Automated Bid Strategies,or if you simply want to optimize your bidding for actual sales, then youwould not include the first action in your conversions column. It would leaveout those people adding products to carts from the total number ofconversions, and put it in to “all conversions.”
TopAdvert.net
When in doubt, stick with the default setting (which is Yes to include).
Step Seven: Choose Your Attribution TypeA visitor may have clicked through to your site multiple times and frommultiple places. This setting is where you tell Google which one of thoseclicks gets credit for the sale.
There is an option to choose the Attribution model. Google defaults to thesetting called “last click attribution.” We recommend you stick with it. Thereare special cases where the other options are useful, but there is no reason tochange to any of the other models offered unless you really want to (butthat’s beyond the scope of this book).
“Conversions” versus “All Conversions”
This is about what conversions you do and do not count,which can have a direct effect on how your campaigns areoptimized.
When setting up a Conversion Action, you get to choose if itshould be included in the count of “conversions” or not.
So “Conversions” is the total of the specific actions you’vechosen to track and “All Conversions” is the total ofeverything.
For example, if you wanted to track a micro conversion such as
TopAdvert.net
“time on site more than 1 minute” you could choose not to addit to Conversions (so it doesn’t skew your data), but it wouldstill be added to All Conversions, so you can see the data inAdWords and use it to help you manage the account.
There used to be a metric called “Converted Clicks,” but thatwas retired in 2016. You can set a campaign to show“Conversions” or “All Conversions.” These are different in acouple of ways.
The difference is that, “All Conversions” contains what youchose not to include in “Conversions.” Also, “AllConversions” includes the main two, being cross-deviceconversions and cross-browser conversions.
For example, if Google believes somebody first opted in withyour site from their mobile device, but ended up purchasingfrom you on their desktop (on which there was no AdWordsclick), the conversion sees that particular user behavior ashaving caused a later conversion. Therefore it will be recordedin “All Conversions” because Google believes the mobile clickto be (at least partly) responsible for the conversion!
Step Eight: Install CodeHow to Create and Install CodeYou’re ready to ensure that your site ends up with the necessary code toallow Google to track your conversions. You’ve got two options: 1) install itmanually, in which case Google will give you a snippet of code to place onyour key pages, or 2) enter the email address of your web developer, andGoogle will send the code there, along with instructions.
In Chapter 29, we’ll talk about how Google Tag Manager can help withthis. But for now, if you’re not comfortable handling this part of the processand you don’t have a web developer, you can find a freelancer or ask one ofthe many talented PPC practitioners in Planet Perry to handle this for you,
TopAdvert.net
such as in the private Mastermind group, www.perrymarshall.com/new-renaissance or www.Marketers247.com.
Important: The most reliable way to keep conversion tracking runningsmoothly is to ensure that your conversion action always results in yourvisitor being directed to a separate page that has a unique, static web address.
What do we mean by this? If you want visitors to complete a lead-captureform, don’t let your web developer talk you into using some fancy Ajax-styleonsite messaging that keeps the user on the same page or generates a dynamicURL. Run the other way!
Your Thank-You Page: A Great Tool for Upsells
Thank-you pages are important—and not just for conversiontracking. They also keep your visitors happy. Nobody likesopting in and then being shoved off to some unrelated offerwithout first being acknowledged and thanked for taking theaction—or worse, being dumped unceremoniously back on thehomepage.
Only a small percentage of your visitors actually put up theirhand, so to speak, to indicate that they might be interested indoing business with you—perhaps between 5 and 10 percent.So treat with care and respect the people who do raise theirhand. A well-designed thank-you page that expressesappreciation to your prospect for his interest is a great way toget your relationship with him started off on the right track.
You might provide your visitor with relevant information aboutwhat next steps to take. You could give her your contactinformation; now might also be a great time to ask for thatFacebook like, or post a short thank-you video for her towatch.
TopAdvert.net
In our current example, once your visitor completes the lead-captureform, you want them to be redirected to a unique thank-you page that has anordinary static URL. If you create multiple landing pages, each with a lead-capture form, you can have one thank-you page for all of them, or you canhave a different thank-you page to go with each one.
Either way, simpler is better. This is the only way to ensure that yourconversion tracking doesn’t break further down the line and that you don’tend up making decisions based on bad data.
Who Is the Real Winner?
Before you become obsessed with dramatically driving downyour cost per action, remember this golden rule of thumb fromDan Kennedy: The winner is not the business that gets thecheapest leads. The winner is the business that can afford topay the most per lead.
There’s nothing wrong with paying less for your conversions.Profit is a worthy goal. But if you want to grow your marketshare, or even your market, then by decreasing your cost perconversion by a few dollars, your lead volume or quality maysuffer. The best strategy to lock in market share and secureprofit for your business over the longest term may be to paymore, not less.
Just be sure you have the resources to handle the increase incustomers!
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ANALYTICSOn a final note, if you’re also a Google Analytics (GA) user, you can connectyour AdWords conversion tracking to your GA account. This saves you from
TopAdvert.net
having to install additional code on your site, and it gives you somemeasuring options that aren’t available through conversion tracking alone.
For example, if you own a blog and your goal is for a visitor to read threepages on their visit, this is simple to set up in Analytics.
There are some caveats, though. Analytics uses different methods forcounting conversions, so your GA numbers may not perfectly match those inyour AdWords account. Analytics also has a bit of a delay sending data toAdWords (usually less than 24 hours).
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYGoogle AdWords is the apex of direct-marketing automation. But you cannotuse it effectively if you don’t first enable conversion tracking.
Create your Conversion Action.Name it and set a value.Choose the count, category, and whether to include in Conversions.Install the Conversion Tracking code on your website, or delegate thisto your web developer.
At first, check to make sure your tracking reports match up to physicalreality. Compare these numbers to your shopping cart, email signups,etc.
Review your data closely to make adjustments and improve yourAdWords results.
Uncle Claude Sez
Never be guided in any way by ads that are untracked. Never do
TopAdvert.net
anything because some uninformed advertiser considers that somethingright. Never be led in new paths by the blind. Apply to your advertisingordinary common sense. . . .
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable orunprofitable according to its actual sales. It is not for general effect. Itis not to keep your name before the people. . . . Treat it as a salesman.Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its costand result. Accept no excuses, which good salesmen do not make. Thenyou will not go far wrong.
Take the opinion of nobody who knows nothing about his returns.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 11
Landing PagesMaking Powerful First Impressions That
Convert
magine you’re walking past a sporting goods store and you see an amazingpair of sneakers in the window. You walk into the shop and the sneakers
are nowhere to be found. Or worse, a security guard stops you at the door anddemands to know your address and phone number.
Not a great first impression.
Your landing page is the same way. When you make a promise in your ad,your visitors expect you to deliver on it when they arrive at your page. Theywon’t stick around otherwise.
If, for example, you promised an answer to a puzzling question, yourpage has to supply the answer or your visitors will bail. If you offered areport or a free software trial, then that’s what you deliver on the page.
Always match your landing page to your ad, and give your visitorsenough information that they can decide whether your offer is truly for them.
WHAT IS A LANDING PAGE?A landing page is a standalone page on your site, separate from yourhomepage designed for visitors to “land on” as soon as they click on your ad.
TopAdvert.net
You craft it with a single outcome in mind—the specific action you wantyour visitor to take, whether that’s opting in for your newsletter, registeringfor a webinar, downloading an ebook or white paper, or calling you on thephone.
Why Don’t I Just Send People to My Homepage?A well-designed landing page with a crystal clear call to action will seem farmore relevant to your visitor, and will convert at a far higher rate, than yourhomepage. If your prospect arrives on your site and has to search, navigate,or even think about what he’s doing, he’ll hit the back button and leave.
Most web developers just want a site that looks pretty. Your goal,however, is to get your prospect to take immediate action.
Pick one single goal for each landing page you create. If you want oneslice of your traffic to opt in for your webinar and another slice to try yourfree software, then create separate landing pages for each one. If you havemultiple offers in mind and you’re not sure which one will convert best,create a split test.
Whatever you do, don’t overwhelm visitors with multiple offers on apage. A confused mind always says, “No.” Stick with one single offer, onesingle call to action, for each page.
MAINTAIN THE “SCENT”Your landing page will perform best when it looks and feels like a naturalcontinuation of your ad. What key words or phrases made your ad sing?What colors or images got people’s attention? What ballsy promise did youmake? Don’t lose your prospect! Match those same elements on your landingpage.
Google’s editors look for this same pattern. They want to see anuninterrupted chain of relevance—a “scent”—starting from the initial searchquery, to the keyword, to the ad, right through to the landing page.
Here’s an example of an ad and landing page that work together tomaintain the scent:
TopAdvert.net
Can you smell the continuity? The landing page keeps the visitor in a
TopAdvert.net
familiar environment. The original offer is clearly visible. There’s noconfusion. The page has eliminated all need to think; the visitor can completethe required action quickly and easily.
THE TWO PEOPLE YOU NEED TO KEEP HAPPYYour landing page needs to make two people happy—not just one.
First, there’s the Google editor who will review it. If he or she decidesyour landing page is unacceptable, your ad will be disapproved. In somecases, Google will suspend or even ban an AdWords account based on thecontent of a landing page. Keeping the editor happy is critical to yourmission.
Google currently lists five main items that they believe make for a goodlanding page “experience”:
1. Relevant, useful, and original content. The copy and images on yourpage must maintain the scent and clearly relate to your ad text andkeyword.
2. Transparency and trustworthiness. Be open and transparent aboutyour business and its product and services. Be clear with visitors (onyour page or via a link) what you plan to do with the personalinformation they share with you.
3. Easy navigation. The simpler the better. When your visitor can easilyfind on the page what you promised in the ad, she’ll stick around andtake action.
4. Fast-loading pages. Pages that load slowly fare poorly with yourvisitors and with Google, too. PageSpeed Insights(https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights) is a terrifictool you can use to check your pages’ load times. Just enter your URLand click on the blue Analyze button to receive suggestions on how tooptimize and improve your page speed.
5. Mobile-friendliness. Now, more than 50 percent of traffic comes frommobile devices. You’re better off designing your landing pages formobile first and then polishing them off for tablet or desktop viewing.
The second person you need to please is your customer or prospect.
TopAdvert.net
Maintain the scent. Give him what he came for. Craft a landing page thatperfectly matches what he saw in the ad. If you make it easy for him to takethe required action, he’ll do it.
THE ESSENTIAL LANDING PAGE CHECKLISTProvide these key elements on your page, and you’ll keep Google on yourside:
A clear business model. If a Google editor manually reviews yoursite, she should be able to tell in fewer than 20 seconds what it is thatyou actually do. How do you make your money? Are you selling acourse, a product, or a service? The editor wants assurance that you’renot harvesting emails in order to spam. Your page should describewhat will happen once your visitors opt in and what value they’llreceive in exchange for their personal information.
Supportable claims. If you have a stellar track record and have wonawards or received stellar reviews and you can support it withverifiable third-party data, by all means say so. Beyond that, avoidmaking money claims or medical and health claims altogether.Google frequently suspends and bans sites that make unsupportedpromises.
Credible testimonials. You’re free to use testimonials on your landingpage. However, if the results they represent are not typical, Googlewill likely require you to mark your testimonials with an asterisk* andwrite the appropriate disclaimer. If yours is an eligible ecommercesite, you can sign up with Google Trusted Stores and display theirtrust badge in your ads and on your pages.
Friendly design. You never get a second chance to make that firstimpression, as they say. Invest the time and a little money on aprofessional, well-designed page that’s easy to navigate. The simplerthe better. Your content might be fantastic, but if the design isoutdated or user-hostile, it’s going to cost you. In the first second ortwo after your prospect lands on your page, he needs to think, “Yes,this is relevant to what I was looking for; yes, there’s obvious valuehere; and yes, it’s clear what action I’m going to take.”
TopAdvert.net
Obvious value. When your prospect first lands on your page, shedoesn’t know you and she doesn’t yet trust you. Before you ask her toopt in, convince her that you have informative content. Providenavigation back to your main site in case she wants to find out more.Both she and Google want to be assured that you deliver value ofsome kind without her having to opt in first. What’s the benefit ofyour offer? If she downloads your free white paper, what will shelearn?
A link to your privacy policy. Have this available at the bottom ofevery page you’re sending paid traffic to. It should be easilydiscoverable in your page footer. If you have a call-to-action buttonon your form, you can include the link right below it.
Contact details. It’s not a hard requirement, but Google prefers thatyou make your physical address—not just a P.O. box—available onyour site. This helps build trust as it demonstrates that you’re a realbusiness with an actual front door. At the very least, you’ll need aworking phone number or a functional email address.
Appropriate disclaimers. Have these ready if you’re usingtestimonials. In some cases, Google requires a disclaimer next toevery testimonial; this depends on your industry. One main disclaimerin your footer stating that, “Individual results may vary” may beadequate.
GIVE YOUR WEB DEVELOPER THE DAY OFF:CREATE YOUR OWN LANDING PAGEThere are scores of great tools available these days to help you create aninexpensive landing page. You won’t need a web designer, and you don’tneed to hassle with complicated coding. The best tools offer a range of fullycustomized templates where you can change colors and text, add images, andquickly build a working page yourself. Here are a few you can check out:
Unbounce (https://unbounce.com)Instapage (https://instapage.com)Leadpages (www.leadpages.net)Click Funnels (www.clickfunnels.com)
TopAdvert.net
OptimizePress (www.optimizepress.com)
You can also use WordPress or whatever platform your website is builton. The platform is not important; what matters is that you end up with apage that converts.
Always Be TestingSending paid traffic to a page that isn’t being tested is a crime
against humanity.–Avinash Kaushik
It may sound harsh, but Kaushik has a point. He’s a huge fanof A/B split testing, and so are we. How do you know if yourcurrent offer is the one that will convert best? How do youknow if your chosen headline and landing page copy willconvert better than some alternative? Without split testing, youdon’t know. You put time, work, and money into your page,and you want to know you’re getting maximum results.
In an ideal world, you want to split test every page that you’reactively sending traffic to. Start with the elements on the pagethat have the biggest impact on results. Those are: the headline,any images at the top of the page, and the layout and placementof your opt-in form. (Other elements include the order orwording of bullet points, your color scheme, and your call-to-action buttons.)
Of these, the headline will always be the biggest differencemaker; start there. And always test just one major page elementat a time.
TopAdvert.net
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYYou want your paid traffic to generate the highest ROI possible. Improveyour landing pages and watch your conversion rates go up. When thathappens, you end up with more leads, and you can afford to buy more trafficin greater volume.
Be clear on the single purpose for your landing page. Create it withthat one conversion goal in mind.
Maintain the scent! Be sure your page is the natural extension of yourad. Use the same design and content with the original promise or offerclearly visible.
Keep Google happy by following their five guidelines on what yourpage should include and how it should function. Read the full listhere: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2404197
Be sure that your visitor’s first impression is that you’re anestablished, trustworthy business. Include your contact details and aprivacy policy. Provide access to enough valuable information thatyour visitor can opt in or purchase from you with confidence.
Split-test the major elements on your landing page. Start with yourheadline, and then test images. Be constantly working to improveyour conversion rates. For further help, check out Optimizely(www.optimizely.com) and Visual Website Optimizer(https://vwo.com).
TopAdvert.net
H
Chapter 12
Bidding StrategiesTools to Keep Your Spending Smart
ow much do I put out on the table to start the game?
That’s a vital question to answer. Fortunately, Google’s tools make it farless of a crapshoot when you first launch a new campaign or ad group. In thischapter, we’ll spell out for you all the strategies and tools to ensure that youspend what you can reasonably afford and get feedback in the shortestpossible time.
START WITH MANUAL BIDSManual bids are the best way to understand firsthand how your dollars andcents are working (or not working) for you. We don’t advise starting outusing Google’s various automatic bid settings. Don’t run to those until youreally understand how your bids are paying off for you. Start withfundamentals—numbers that you can personally see, respond to, and adjust.
Frankly, Google’s machine is not good at figuring out what your bidsshould be until it has a significant amount of data. You’ll need to be gettingat least 50 conversions a month (at the campaign level) before you start usingautomated bidding.
WHERE DO YOU SET BIDS?
TopAdvert.net
Google Display Network (GDN) campaigns can be a bit complicated. We’lldiscuss those in the chapters on GDN. For now, let’s focus on Search.
Search gives you two options. The first (easier) option is to set bids at thead group level. The second is to set them at the keyword level. Like a manualversus automatic transmission, keyword bidding gives you more control, butyou’ll have more to watch and manage.
What to Use as a Starting BidWe suggest you begin by using Google’s Keyword Planner tool(https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner). Enter yourkeywords and it will suggest a reasonable starting bid. If you’re notcomfortable with Google’s recommendations, start with $1 or $2 per click.This will of course depend on your own budget and appetite for risk.Whatever you use, it’s only a starting point. You’ll be changing it often.
There are three extra columns of data that you’ll want to add next to eachof your keywords to use as a guide for getting your ads seen affordably.You’ll find these under the Keywords tab: click on the Column Chooser;then, under the Attributes section, add the three additional columns calledEstimated First Page Bid, Estimated Top Page Bid, and Estimated FirstPosition Bid.
Different advertisers have different goals and different numbers they’reoptimizing for. For our purposes here, we’re not aiming for moreimpressions, more clicks, or even more video views. We’re interested inconversions and your conversion data. Hopefully by now, you have yourtracking set up, conversions are happening, and you’re starting to getconversion data.
BID STRATEGIESUnder the Shared Library in your account you’ll find a section called BidStrategies. There you’ll find the option to create six different bid strategies:
1. Enhanced Cost per Click (ECPC). This is arguably the safest ofGoogle’s bid strategies. It’s a good place to start. You select yourdefault bid as usual, and Google increases or decreases your bid based
TopAdvert.net
on their calculations as to whether a particular click will lead to aconversion.
2. Target Cost per Acquisition (CPA). If you’re using conversiontracking (which you should be—see Chapter 10), you can select thisbid strategy. It used to be known as Google Conversion Optimizer.With it, Google works to maximize your number of conversions whilestill hitting your desired CPA. You set your target CPA dollar amountat the campaign or ad group level; Google then decides when to showyour ads, who to show them to, and how much to charge for eachclick so as to reach your goal.
Pro tip: Use your target CPA to adjust the total spend for yourcampaign. If you want to reduce your incoming traffic, don’t decreaseyour budget; instead, decrease your target CPA. This forces themachine to work harder to find you cheaper leads or sales.
3. Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). This is another option if you’reusing conversion tracking. In this case, the strategy is to hit a targetROI. This means you’re going after a conversion value rather than atotal number of conversions.
4. Maximized Clicks. With this method, Google automatically adjustsyour bids to maximize the number of clicks you receive. You can seta maximum budget, but Google has free rein to adjust your bids inwhatever fashion its system believes will deliver the most clicks. Wefrankly don’t advise using this. If sheer traffic volume is moreimportant to you than conversions, you may find this worth testing.Otherwise, steer clear.
5. Target Search Page Location. Google adjusts your bid based onwhether you indicate you’re looking to get merely onto the first pageof search results or to the very top of results. Be cautious with thisone. Getting to the top of the page can be expensive. Be aware thatyou’re giving Google permission to spend your money.
6. Target Outranking Share. With this method, you specify a websitedomain name, most likely one of your main competitors, and you tellGoogle to show your ads above that specific competitor. You can alsospecify the percentage of time that you would like to outrank them onthe page. Note that Google doesn’t guarantee that you’ll always rankabove your competitor; that will depend on how much your
TopAdvert.net
competitor is willing to bid. This is a risky strategy for beginners. Ifyour competitors are bidding high, you may end up spending far morethan you intended.
WHAT IS SMART BIDDING?Google is an AI-first company. They’re all about artificial intelligence, andthey’re constantly searching for ways to have the machines do more of thework.
Smart Bidding is the technology used in three of the bid strategies we’velisted—Enhanced CPC, Target CPA, and Target ROAS. It’s you handingover the reins and letting Google decide how much to charge every time yourad enters an auction. It does this using a huge range of contextual signals.The full list of these is vast, but the most important include the device aperson is using, the location, time of day, whether the user is on aremarketing list or not, the type of ad, the search query, and even the browserand operating system.
So why use Smart Bidding? We are fast approaching the point wherethere is simply too much data for any one human being to process. Even ifyou could spend all day in your AdWords campaigns, tweaking this,adjusting that, there are just too many signals to account for. Google hasmore data than God. (OK, maybe not that much.) They have access to everyaccount and every party in the auction, and they also know an enormousamount about each person searching. We will soon reach the point wherethere is simply no beating the machine. You’ll want to test Smart Bidding ifyou’re not already using it.
UPPING YOUR GAME WITH BID ADJUSTMENTSEach keyword in your account has a “base bid.” Let’s say you choose $1 asyours. Once that’s determined, you can adjust that bid based on variouscriteria, which we’ll explain below.
You can instruct Google to decrease your bid as much as 90 percent inone circumstance or increase it 900 percent in another. (In this example, a900 percent increase on our $1 would result in a bid of $10, and a decrease of60 percent would result in a bid of 40 cents.)
TopAdvert.net
Here are a few methods of adjusting your bids based on geography, time,device, and more.
DeviceThis is the most common bid adjustment you can make. It can be done at thecampaign or ad group level (most others are campaign-only). It allows you tochange the bids for the three device categories—desktop, mobile, and tablet.
For example, you can leave the desktop bid as is (0 percent adjustment =$1); you can decrease the mobile bid by 60 percent (= $0.40); and you canincrease your bid on tablets by 20 percent (= $1.20).
If you like, you can set a particular device type at –100 percent. This tellsGoogle to stop showing ads on that device entirely. So if you set your tabletbid at –100 percent, your ads will only show on desktops and mobiles goingforward.
LocationExpect some regions or cities to perform better than others. Skilled AdWordspractitioners sculpt the geography of their campaigns to target hot customersin prime areas and reduce or eliminate the places that underperform. If inChicago you’re getting a CPA of $50, but in Florida every conversion iscosting you $150, try decreasing just your Florida bids.
TimeDon’t confuse this with ad scheduling, which allows you to turn ads off onspecific days or during specific time periods. The time bid feature lets youmove your bid up or down depending on the time of day or day of the week.Let’s say you discover that clicks in the evening are more profitable for you.You can tell Google to increase your bid by 25 percent from 7:00 to 11:30P.M. Or if weekends are quiet, you can have Google decrease bids by 40percent on Saturday and Sunday. There’s no need for you to manually adjustthese in real time; bid adjustments will do it for you.
TopAdvert.net
Advanced Bid AdjustmentsWe don’t recommend these if you’re brand-new to AdWords, but they areworth exploring if you have a bit of experience under your belt.
1. Audiences. You can bid differently based on whether a person hasvisited your website or not. If you have an ecommerce site, you canincrease bids by 10 percent for everyone who is on your remarketinglist and has been to your site. You could bid 50 percent more forsomeone who made it all the way to checkout without buying. Youcan consider demographics—age and gender—and bid 50 percent lesson men.
With this feature, you’re given two bid adjustment settings: “BidOnly” and “Target & Bid.” For now, we recommend you stick withBid Only.
2. Top Content. This is a little-known and rarely used setting for GDNcampaigns. You can bid higher and have your ads shown on whatGoogle considers “top content”—sites or pages that are trending orhot right now. You can bid up to 500 percent more and be seen on anews page that’s going viral or next to a popular YouTube video. It’sa strategy worth testing—that’s where all the people are!
How Are My Ads Performing on DifferentDevices?
If you’re unsure whether removing mobile ads is a good idea,visit the AdWords “Campaign” screen and use the “Segment”dropdown option to see your results broken down by differentdevices.
TopAdvert.net
For each of your campaigns, this will show statistics fordesktop computers, mobile devices, and tablets. If you haveconversion tracking turned on, you’ll also be able to see yourcost per action (CPA) for each device. If your CPA on aparticular device is hurting your profitability, you can changethe specific bid adjustment for that device, reduce your spend,and improve your results.
There are many other GDN targeting options that can be tweaked usingbid adjustments. See Chapter 14 on Google’s Display Network targeting.
RISKY! BEWARE OF BID STACKINGThis is a bit technical, but it’s important that you’re aware of this effect.
Bid stacking is what happens when you activate more than one bidadjustment at a time. If you’re not aware of the risks before playing aroundwith this advanced feature, you can end up paying considerably more thanyou intended for clicks.
TopAdvert.net
1. When calculating bid adjustments, understand how Google does theirarithmetic. Not changing a bid does not mean “multiplying by 0percent.” If you want to keep a bid the same, you multiply by 1. Ifyou want to boost a $5 bid to $7.50, you multiply by 1.5, not by 0.5.
0 percent = multiply by 1.00+50 percent = multiply by 1.50+200 percent = multiply by 3.00 (to multiply by 2 means doubling;200 percent means tripling)–20 percent = multiply by 0.80–90 percent = multiply by 0.10
2. Understand how multiple bids impact each other.Let’s say you modify your bid up by 10 percent for people living inLondon, and also modify your bid up 10 percent on Wednesdays.When someone from London clicks on your ad on a Wednesday,Google will apply both increases to your spend. Here’s what thatlooks like:Regular bid is $5.
A user from London (+10 percent) clicks your ad on a Tuesday(no adjustment), which increases your maximum bid to $5.50.A user from London (+10 percent) clicks on your ad on aWednesday (+10 percent), which increases your maximum bid to$6.05 ($5 × 1.1 × 1.1).
Got it?
The same applies to decreasing bid adjustments as well. Let’s sayyour regular bid is $5. You bid –30 percent for Chicago dwellers and–20 percent for mobile users at the same time:Regular bid is $5.
A user from Chicago (–30 percent) clicks on your ad via a desktopdevice, which decreases your maximum bid to $3.50 ($5 × 0.70).A user from Chicago (–30 percent) clicks on your ad via a mobiledevice (–20 percent), which decreases your maximum bid to $2.80
TopAdvert.net
($5 × 0.7 × 0.8).
Let’s try one more. Grab a calculator, and see if you can work out theanswer yourself. Your regular bid is $10. You set bid adjustments tobe –25 percent for mobile users, up 200 percent for users fromFlorida, and up 20 percent on Tuesdays and Thursdays.What would be the bid for a mobile user from Florida, clicking on aTuesday?(*Answer at the end of this chapter.)
Note: If there are multiple bids that need to be stacked together, youmight worry that your final bid could be many times larger than youroriginal. Don’t worry. Google has thought of this. Even if your $5 bid lookslike it could turn into a $1,000 bid with all the adjustments, Google won’t letthat happen. The maximum bid adjustment is capped at +900 percent. In thiscase, $5 may become $50, but at least you won’t spend hundreds orthousands per click.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYGoogle’s new approach to mobile targeting can be frustrating, but the rangeof flexible bid strategies and bid adjustments has opened up a whole newlevel of control that’s worth exploring. The ability to zero in on geographiesand device types and modify bids makes sculpting your campaigns mucheasier than it used to be.
Review your bid adjustments and consider changing device andgeography based on your CPA data.
Test various bid strategies; start with enhanced CPC, and move on toTarget CPA once you have enough conversion data.
* The answer to the question on page 109 is: Your maximum bid wouldgo from $10 to $27.
TopAdvert.net
A
Chapter 13
Supercharge Your Clickthrough Rateswith Ad Extensions
d extensions boost clickthrough rates. It’s that simple.
Some folks dismiss ad extensions as unnecessarily complicated and fussy.But these extra links and lines of copy make your ads more visible and morerelevant at the same time. And when you improve your visibility andrelevance, you increase your CTR and Ad Rank.
Ad extensions let you expand your ads and introduce additional specificinformation. Your ads stand out on the page and entice more clicks. Here’s anexample of what these look like on the search page:
Did you know that ad extensions even influence your Ad Rank? To quoteGoogle: “If two competing ads have the same bid and quality, the ad withgreater expected impact from extensions will generally appear in a higher ad
TopAdvert.net
position than the other.”This gives you an automatic advantage over other advertisers.Even if you’re a relative beginner to AdWords, this is an opportunity you
want to take advantage of.Before we get into the specific extensions that are available and how to
make the best use of them, here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Google has final say over when they do or don’t show yourextensions. They base this on the performance of your campaign.
2. Some extensions you have full manual control over, while othersGoogle inserts automatically.
3. A few of the available ad extensions will only show if your ad isdisplaying among the top four premium positions, immediately abovethe organic search results.
4. Some extensions will appear differently on different devices.5. Most extensions can be shown to users in any country, although some
are specific to particular regions.6. The first extensions we’re going to review (the “main ones”) only
apply to Google Search campaigns, not to ads on the DisplayNetwork.
TopAdvert.net
Access Ad Extensions via the main menu:
AD EXTENSION #1: SITELINKSIf your ad is showing in one of the top four premium spots, you can showsitelink extensions. These appear as additional links underneath your mainad. You’ll typically see two, three or four (maybe six) links that point theuser to different pages on your site:
TopAdvert.net
These can work wonders for you. They don’t cost you any extra, theyoffer more specific and relevant options for your prospect to click on, andthey let you take visitors directly to the most relevant page.
Best of all, they take up more space on the Google results page, pushingyour competitors and the organic search listings further down and out of theway.
Let’s say your website sells a particular brand of men’s shirts. You bid onthe brand name as a keyword and write an ad that specifically offers a deal onlong-sleeve crewnecks. With sitelinks, you can also add in three or fouradditional links in your ad that take visitors to offers for turtlenecks, short-sleeve shirts, or even hoodies all from the same brand.
Or you can highlight other information that may be of particular interestto the searcher, such as your About Us page, or your Shipping and ReturnsPolicy page.
These extensions are easy to add and update. You can even createsitelinks that are specific to mobile devices, and you can schedule sitelinks toshow at specific times, which is especially valuable if your offers areseasonal or expire after a specific date.
Google has greatly improved the reporting information they give you foryour sitelinks, making it far easier for you to see which ones are getting themost clicks and activity.
A word of caution: Google allows you to set up different sitelinks fordifferent ad groups. That sounds like a great idea . . . in theory. Problem is, itadds a level of complexity that only the most experienced AdWords usersshould be grappling with.
If you’re just getting started, stick to activating sitelinks at the campaignlevel.
A Feature That Gives You Higher CTRs
There’s a feature called “Enhanced Sitelinks” that allows youto add the equivalent of a headline (up to 25 characters) andtwo description lines (35 characters each) to each individual
TopAdvert.net
sitelink. With this in place, your ad will take up even morespace, effectively creating four miniature ads that displayunderneath your main ad.
That can’t help but improve your CTR.
Those will only show for high-volume keywords, however. Letyour account run for a couple of months before trying out thisfeature. Start with your highest-traffic campaign.
Note that all of the expanded sitelinks that you create musthave unique final URLs, and these must be different from thefinal URL of the ad. When this feature was first rolled out, youcould direct your expanded sitelinks to any third-party URL.This has been discontinued in the case of most third-party sites;however, you can link to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, orTwitter pages.
AD EXTENSION #2: CALLOUT EXTENSIONSAs with sitelinks, callouts offer additional text in your ad—making your adbigger—which pushes your competitors’ ads and organic listings furtherdown the page. Typically, you can add three or four useful snippets of copyto your ad. However, unlike sitelinks, callouts are not clickable. Googlerecommends that you limit yourself to 12 to 15 characters per callout; the
TopAdvert.net
hard limit is 25.
AD EXTENSION #3: STRUCTURED SNIPPETSDespite being easy to create, structured snippets are overlooked by most
advertisers. Yet they’re another great opportunity to add more (nonclickable)text into your ads. Whereas callout extensions allow you to type in whateveryou like, up to 25 characters, structured snippets—as the name suggests—aremore restrictive.
First, you choose from a group of attributes based on what you sell.Options include: types, styles, brands, amenities, courses, and models, plus afew more.
Most of the time you will just use “types” or “brands.” Services is a goodplace to start if you sell a range of products or services.
You then enter in a range of values for that attribute. For example, if you
TopAdvert.net
sell training courses, you might enter “personal development,” “businesstraining,” “leadership,” “time management,” and “public speaking.” Thesewill show as an additional line underneath your ad.
But remember: Google gets to choose when to show each extension.
AD EXTENSION #4: CALL EXTENSIONSGoogle no longer allows you to type your phone number directly into the textof your ad. Call Extensions now take the place of that. If you’re in a countrythat allows the use of a Google forwarding number, you can use this to getaccess to additional reporting features.
These are most useful because they allow you to count a phone call as aconversion. You can even specify the minimum length of a converting phonecall. For example, a call might only count as a conversion if it’s longer than45 seconds.
TopAdvert.net
The cost to have a mobile user click on your telephone number is thesame as a regular click. That makes this an extremely cost-effective methodof driving calls to your business. This is also a good feature to combine withad scheduling if, for instance, you only want your call extensions activatedduring business hours.
How Much Does Google Charge You for Calls?
Charges for phone calls and clicks to your ads can get tricky.If someone clicks on your call extension to ring your telephonenumber directly, you’ll be charged the cost of a regular click. Ifthat same user also clicks on your ad’s URL to visit yourlanding page, you’ll be charged a second time. You won’t,however, be charged a third time for any subsequent clicks onthe same ad by the same user.
AD EXTENSION #5: LOCATIONLocation extensions allow you to show your business address next to your ad.This is relevant if you’re showing ads to people just in your area, as it’s asignal to them that you are in fact local.
Note that it’s Google who decides whether showing your address next toyour ad will be useful for the person searching or not. They may display alink for driving directions as well.
If you want to show location extensions in your ads, you now need to linkyour Google My Business (GMB) and AdWords accounts together. (It’s nolonger possible to enter the address of your store directly into AdWords.)You may also need to verify the phone number you use on your GMB page ifit’s different from the number shown on your site. (You can find moreinformation about the linking process athttps://support.google.com/adwords/answer/7189290.)
TopAdvert.net
AD EXTENSION #6: PRICEA price extension allows you to list your products below your ad. Once again,there’s a great benefit here: your ad takes up more onscreen real estate—especially on mobile devices—and that pushes your competitors further downthe page.
When you create your extension, you’ll choose your language, the type(as we mentioned earlier with structured snippets), your currency, and a pricequalifier. The qualifier adds either “From” or “Up to” before your prices, oryou can choose to display no qualifiers at all. For each product item, you’llenter a header and a description (maximum of 25 characters each), a price,and a final URL. (In this case, all your price extensions can use the sameURL, e.g., your homepage.)
We recommend you enter at least five items. Google will test these andtypically show the three that perform best.
When Google first introduced price extensions, they were permitted onlyto show on mobile devices. They’re now in the process of testing andexpanding this.
AD EXTENSION #7: MESSAGEMessage extensions allow your visitor to connect to you via text messagedirectly from a link in your ad. As such, these are only shown on mobiledevices.
If your visitor clicks on the extension link, the messaging app on theirphone will open with a simple prepopulated note that they can send to you(e.g., “I’d like to know more about your services”).
TopAdvert.net
To set up message extensions, you’ll enter your business name, the phonenumber that messages will be sent to, the extension text you’ll show next toyour link (e.g., “Text us to learn more”), and the prepopulated note.
OTHER EXTENSIONSApps. When a person clicks on the app extensions link in your ad, they’retaken directly to the Google Play or Apple App Store page that features yourapp. This gets more people installing your app and using it. (See Google HelpCenter for setup details.)
Reviews. This is different from the Seller Ratings that you get on reviewsites. It specifically refers to reviews not by individual buyers but byreputable third parties. This is another extension that’s tricky to set up. (Thus,it’s rarely used.) To qualify for this, you’ll need the URL of the webpage thatcontains your review. Once you have that, you either select an exact quote orwrite a paraphrased version of no more than 67 characters, including thesource name. You’ll then provide Google with the URL of the third-party siteon which the review can be found. If you’re willing to do the dance, thenonce you activate it, this extension may display the review quote as an extra
TopAdvert.net
line below your ad.
AUTOMATIC EXTENSIONSSeller Ratings. If your product or service is featured on well-knownindependent review sites such as Yelp, Bazaarvoice, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla,etc., Google will compile the results and show your average rating out of fivestars. You need to have had at least 30 unique reviews over the previous 12months and an average score of at least 3.5 out of 5. Be proactive with this,and ask your customers to leave reviews of your product. To learn more, visithttps://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375474. Google is also startingto show seller ratings on shopping ads. This is of interest if you’re a retailer.
Dynamic Sitelinks and Dynamic Structured Snippets. These areextensions that Google essentially writes for you. For best results, don’t relyon automatic extensions to show. Instead, manually add them to yourcampaign.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYNot only do ad extensions increase your visibility and CTR, they expand yourads to considerably greater sizes, giving you a bigger piece of Google realestate. Best part: this comes at no extra cost.
Add sitelink, callout, and structured snippet extensions, and use thereporting interface to see how they’re helping your results.
If your primary goal is to generate phone calls to your business,activate call extensions.
If you’re a local brick-and-mortar business, link your Google MyBusiness page to your AdWords account to enable location extensionsto show.
Review the other ad extensions, and find the ones with the biggestpotential to help grow your business.
Once your campaign has been running for a couple of months,consider adding enhanced sitelinks to your highest-traffic campaign.
TopAdvert.net
Uncle Claude Sez
The best advertisers . . . learn their appealing claims by tests—bycomparing results from various headlines. Gradually, they accumulate alist of claims important enough to use. All those claims appear in everyad thereafter.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 14
How to Get Your Ads on Millions ofWebsites with Google’s Display
Network
n this chapter, we’re going to show you how to reach over 90 percent ofinternet users through a single network, how to get your ads in front of
YouTube and mobile app users, and how to tap into Google’s insideknowledge of pretty much everyone.
A year or two after AdWords began, Google started selling ads on its DisplayNetwork. At the time, the ability to advertise on a search engine was new andexciting. Search ads were the hot commodity. The prospect of selling only topeople who had just searched for what you sell was cocaine.
Display advertising was more akin to billboards and magazine ads, so weviewed it with suspicion. “This is just a money grab by Google.” (When Icatch myself saying that, it usually turns out to be a half truth.)
I had a site, www.coffeehousetheology.com, which I was advertising onthe Search Network. One day, I accidentally turned on the Display Network.Sheer accident. The very next day, I noticed something: I got 100 opt-insinstead of yesterday’s 15!
Which Is Better for Your Business? Google
TopAdvert.net
Search or Google Display? Find Out in OneMinute!
Take this short quiz and get an instant ScoreCard on howappropriate your business is for 1) Google AdWords forkeyword search and 2) Google’s Display Network. YourScoreCard will also gauge the competition level and priorityyou should place on AdWords compared to other advertisingopportunities.
It only takes 60 seconds:
www.IsAWforMe.com
At first, I didn’t even know why I got the extra 85 opt-ins. I sifted throughmy account and finally figured out what had changed. All those new signupswere from Display Network traffic!
The site was about spirituality. People are vastly more interested inspirituality than their search activity on Google would ever suggest. Manytopics are like that. A person may rarely search for it, but if you put the rightad in front of them, they’ll stop what they’re doing and listen to you.
Google Display Network (GDN) is perfect for such topics. For mass-appeal consumer offers, GDN can deliver tremendous volumes of traffic.Millions of clicks per day. GDN can be potent for B2B and small niches aswell. GDN proved to be tremendously effective for that project, getting mehundreds of thousands of opt-ins and millions of visitors for a bargain price.
If you wanted to see your ads on CNN’s website, how would you do that?You could try the traditional route: check that your budget has room for
the tens of thousands of dollars you’d expect to spend. Make endless phonecalls, engage in dozens of email conversions, battle through the layers ofgatekeepers and decision-makers until you reach the person who has theauthority to discuss the advertising opportunity with you. Finally, assumingyou managed to agree to terms and have your content approved, line up
TopAdvert.net
behind all the other businesses who also want their products and servicesfeatured on CNN’s high-traffic website.
Actually, you don’t need to do any of that.Just log in to your AdWords account, load up the Display Planner, create
a campaign that targets CNN—choose a specific page on their site if you like—and then decide how much per click you’re willing to bid for the privilege.
It’s that simple.That’s the power of GDN. Extend your AdWords campaign beyond mere
search pages, and you have access to more than two million websites thathave agreed to place Google ads.
In the years since introducing the program that website publishers knowas AdSense, Google has become one of the largest advertising networks inhistory, connecting publishers and advertisers from all corners of the globe.
At its simplest level, it’s a beautiful system:
A website owner (the “publisher”) produces content and is eager tomake money from the traffic that his site commands.
He places code on his website, similar to an invisible box, whichGoogle can use as they see fit.
People (the “advertisers”) pay Google to place their ads on his site, inthe invisible boxes.
Google shares a portion of that income with the publisher.
The publisher doesn’t know exactly what ads will appear on his site, buthe trusts Google to properly screen and manage the advertisers. As a result heavoids having to spend huge amounts of time looking for advertisers andmanaging clients on a one-to-one basis.
As an AdWords user, whether you were previously aware of this or not,you have access to the entire GDN, and you can add it to your PPCcampaigns with just a few clicks. However, just like the rest of your GooglePPC campaigns, the difference between a stunning ROI and complete failureis how well you understand the options available to you and how well youprepare and implement your strategy.
This chapter is an introduction to GDN. You will also find extendedmaterials on my website at www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
TopAdvert.net
DISPLAY VS. SEARCHThe most obvious difference between GDN and Google’s Search Network isthe range of locations available to you on which you can advertise. Thesearch network gives you access only to Google’s sites and only to peoplewho are proactively searching for information. By contrast, GDN gives youaccess to every kind of site imaginable, reaching people who are expressingall manner of different interests.
Just how huge is GDN? It connects you to more than two million sites.The number of individual web pages you can target reaches into the billions.
From small blogs and forums receiving a few hundred visits per day tointernet titans like CNN, TripAdvisor, and LinkedIn, the audience tuckedaway in GDN is mind-boggling.
And that’s before you factor in YouTube videos and mobile apps!There’s also a less obvious but more important difference, namely, the
mindset of people who see GDN ads. People go onto Google’s SearchNetwork proactively looking for information. They see your ads as apotential solution.
In stark contrast, people who see GDN ads are not searching for yourinformation—they’re just browsing a website that interests them. They maysee your ad as an interruption in much the same way that people seecommercials on television and radio.
That doesn’t make the GDN useless, it just requires a different approach—what some people refer to as “interruption marketing.” You present anenticing offer that is so engaging that viewers will feel compelled to stopwhat they’re doing and give your ad a healthy moment of attention.
If the Google Search Network is like playing checkers, then GDN ischess. They both involve strategic thinking. But while the latter requires morethought before each move, it offers vastly more options to win!
IS GOOGLE’S DISPLAY NETWORK WORTH THEEFFORT?GDN is absolutely worth the investment of your time and effort. It allowsyou to:
TopAdvert.net
Reach over 90 percent of internet users through a single network.Chew on that a bit. You have access to virtually the entire gamut ofinternet users through a single portal. As we discussed in the openingsection of this chapter, this is infinitely more practical than trying tonegotiate with individual websites and corporations one at a time.
Target specific groups of people with very specific interests. The earlydays of GDN were a little scattershot, but Google has worked veryhard at making its network more organized and its matching systemmore precise.
Use more creativity in your ads. GDN ads are more than just text. Youcan craft image ads, which are great for branding as well as creatingvery eye-catching campaigns. You can also get away with morecreativity in general than you can in search since the context is somuch wider.
Reach app users. In the Apple and Google app stores are countlessfree apps that are monetized through GDN.
Generate an impressive ROI. This is the best news of all. Manyadvertisers skip the GDN because they don’t understand it. Many whodo use it don’t do so correctly. But if you tackle GDN with the rightstrategy, you can dominate your niche at a fraction of the cost ofadvertising on the Search Network.
Yes, generating a profit from GDN takes more time and commitment thanregular Search-based PPC work, and you should expect your budget duringthe first month or more to be predominantly spent on testing and tweakingyour campaigns. But once you’ve got this sorted, the results can bespectacular.
One of our students uses GDN to generate conversions in a particularniche for just two cents apiece. On most regular Search Network campaigns,you can’t even buy a single click for that price!
HIT THE BULL’S-EYE BY CAREFULLYCHOOSING YOUR TARGETThe more relevant and targeted your GDN ad, the better your ROI will be.The difference between a carefully targeted campaign and a poorly targeted
TopAdvert.net
one can be astounding. One of Mike’s clients hired a so-called “PPC expert”and burned through $15,000 to generate just three leads. This client came toMike and after a single week spent improving their targeting options, he cuttheir costs to just $15 per lead.
When GDN Is Absolutely Vital
As amazing as the GDN can be, if you’re new to PPC there’sno shame in leaving it be until you’ve mastered the searchnetwork first. GDN is most helpful to folks who already have avery good range of PPC campaigns running and are satisfiedthat they’re maximizing their effectiveness on search. Forthem, GDN is the next natural step in extending their reach. Ifyou’re not at that point yet, not a problem. You can come backto this idea later on.
That said, regardless of your level of experience, everyone canand should use the GDN for remarketing campaigns. More onthat in Chapter 15.
In another example, a client came to us spending $200 per conversion(which was still profitable for them); within three months we had this downto $34 per conversion. It is so much healthier.
Google provides you with four different options for selecting your placein the GDN.
Managed Placement TargetingWith this option, you enter the web address of the sites where you want toadvertise. If those sites are available, Google will show your ads there. Youcan even target a specific area on a site. For example, you can select
TopAdvert.net
www.nytimes.com which will give you access to the entire New York Timeswebsite, or you can specify www.nytimes.com/section/technology, whichwill limit your ads to the technology section.
This is a good option if you want a lot of control, but it greatly limits yourreach. Google doesn’t publish its entire list of partners, so you’ll need toresearch what’s available and you’ll inevitably miss some primeopportunities. Even if you spend days or (more likely) weeks handpicking ahundred sites, you’ll only be reaching a fraction of the sites Google hasaccess to.
Topic TargetingGoogle categorizes all of the pages in all of the sites in their network intovarious topics. Using this option, you can choose broad or narrow categoriesof site on which to show your ads. There are, at the time of writing, 2,221topics to choose from. You can view these in your AdWords account or athttps://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/verticals.
The more specific and drilled-down a topic you choose, the better yourtargeting will be. For example, “Arts & Entertainment” is extremely broad,but you can drill down to “Arts & Entertainment > Entertainment Industry >Recording Industry > Record Labels” for terrific precision.
Keep in mind that by using this method, you aren’t targeting people whowork in those industries, but rather people who are interested in these topicsand who visit sites on these subjects. Many of those people could becomeyour customers.
Keyword TargetingTopic targeting is an easy place to begin, but it’s still quite broad. For evenbetter results, target by keywords.
Every page on every one of the two-million-plus sites within Google’sDisplay Network has been identified by Google to have a central “theme.”Google looks at the text and language on the page, links, page structure, andvarious other “signals” to determine that theme.
Keywords are what you use in your display campaigns to tell Google
TopAdvert.net
which themes to look for. They then find the pages to match your chosenkeyword themes. This can be a very precise targeting method.
There are three main types of keywords:
Brand KeywordsThis is where a company or organization bids on their own name. If yourclient happens to be Tony Robbins, brand keywords you can use here wouldinclude “Tony Robbins,” “Anthony Robbins,” “Date with Destiny,” andothers.
Why target your own brand name? Because a page on the DisplayNetwork where people are talking about you, your products, or your businesscan be a fantastic place to show your ad. This is true whether it’s an article onThe New York Times, a blog post on Oprah.com, or a short forum post on atiny site you’ve never heard of. If your name is the subject of a positiveconversation, that’s a great place for people to see you advertising.
Competitor KeywordsThis method allows Google to find any of the numerous pages in theirnetwork where your competitor is being discussed. You can then insertyourself into the conversation.
That’s a conversation worth entering.In this case, the Tony Robbins organization might bid on “Brendon
Burchard” or “Brendon.com.”
Non-Brand KeywordsYou’re probably already familiar with non-brand keywords. You use these inyour search campaigns. They’re the terms related to your products andservices.
If you sell young women’s fashion, it might be worth targeting keywordslike “maxi dress” or “crop tops.” Google will show your ads on pages relatedto those themes.
The easiest way to create a keyword-targeted campaign is to put onekeyword in each ad group. If your non-brand campaign research gave you 84possible keywords, you’ll literally want 84 ad groups in that new GDNcampaign. That may sound like a lot, but this ensures full coverage andaccurate targeting.
TopAdvert.net
When setting up your ad groups, Google gives you the option to choosebetween “Audience” and “Content.” We recommend leaving it on theAudience default setting.
Behavioral TargetingThis option focuses on the people who are browsing on the Display network,rather than the site they’re on or the theme of the page they happen to bereading. Google knows an enormous amount about its users, including theirfavorite sites, the videos they watch, the items they purchase, the types ofemails they receive, and more. Google combines this information to create afairly accurate profile of each user’s personal interests.
For example, if you visit lots of sports-related sites, Google will rightlyassume that this is a topic you care about. And if most of those sites are aboutgolf, Google will assume golf is your favorite sport and add it to their profileof you.
With this targeting method, Google shows your ad to people they believewould have an interest in your business, regardless of the site they’re on. Icould be on a site that sells clothes, but if my profile shows an interest intennis and you sell tennis equipment, Google would show me your ad thereon the page.
This may sound a bit scary—even invasive. You can see a snapshot ofGoogle’s profile of you at http://www.google.com/ads/preferences.
Behavioral targeting allows you to target people in two ways: 1) interesttargeting, which is their behavior across the wider web. Google gets a senseof their overall interests, using either short- or long-term activity; 2) targetingbased on each person’s behavior on your site. This includes both remarketing(see Chapter 15 for even more on this), which refers to their behavior on yoursite, as well as customer match (your knowledge of their email address).
Let’s talk about interest targeting first. There are two primary types youcan start with:
1. Affinity Targeting. This is where you target people based on theirlong-term behavior over the course of many months. It takes intoaccount the types of websites they’ve been to and searches they’vedone. (This is essentially how TV advertising is bought and sold.)
TopAdvert.net
Google has broken down the available market into roughly 100segments. Examples include avid investors, music lovers, and carenthusiasts.
2. In-Market Targeting. Unlike affinity targeting, this targets peoplebased on their online behavior over just the past one to two weeks. Itincludes searches they’ve performed, sites they’ve visited, and evenemails they’ve received. This is how Google knows what you’re inthe market to buy in the very near future. So if you’ve been doingsearches lately for the latest Audi, Google knows not only that you’relooking to buy a new car but also which brand you are interested in.
The other major type of behavioral targeting is called remarketing, andthere are five main types you can use:
1. Basic remarketing. This is where you show an ad to a previous visitorbased on what actions they took on your website—which pages theylooked at, the amount of time they spent on your site, which trafficsource they came from—and how recently they visited your site. Thisis like putting out a gentle reminder to past visitors to nudge themback to your website.
2. YouTube remarketing. If you’re running videos as ads, you canretarget every person who views, comments on, or likes any of yourvideos. You can build entire lists of those people and target themfurther with advertising. (See Chapter 16 on leveraging the power ofYouTube video ads.)
3. Customer match. If you advertise on Facebook, you may be familiarwith their Website Custom Audience targeting method. Google joinedthe game and introduced their own customer match option. With thisfeature, you can upload a .csv file of email addresses, and the onesthat Google recognizes will be targeted with ads. (Note: You cannotupload a purchased email list; you can only use email addressesyou’ve collected directly from your users.)
4. Dynamic remarketing. This is primarily for retailers. If you’re anecommerce store and you’ve got a Merchant Center account linked toyour AdWords account, you can show ads featuring a specific productthat your visitor just looked at on your site.
TopAdvert.net
5. Similar audiences. This leverages Google’s vast knowledge of itsnetwork of users. If you have generated a remarketing list of 20,000people, you can then choose to target other Google users who aresimilar to yours. Google looks at thousands of data points andprovides you a new list, five to ten times the size of your original,allowing you to advertise to it. This is similar to Facebook’sLookalike Audience.
AD OPTIONSThe main ad option available to you now Google calls “responsive ads.”These were introduced in 2016, and they allow you to show multiple formatsof ads from just one set of assets.
(Other ad options include App, Lightbox, and video ads. These arebeyond the scope of this book, as they’re used by only a small fraction ofadvertisers.)
THE DISPLAY GRIDThese targeting methods allow you to create a huge range of differentcampaigns. We’ve developed a free visual guide for this atwww.TheDisplayGrid.com.
The Display Grid makes it easy to visualize all of the available GDNstrategies in one place. You can also use it to decide which combinations ofad targeting and ad types you want to test first. And you can use it to keeptrack of the various results that you get from testing all these combinations.
DISPLAY PLANNER AND ALL THE CLEVERWAYS YOU CAN BIDJust like the Keyword Planner for Search (see Chapter 3), you can useDisplay Planner for researching keywords and GDN targeting options. Startwith a single “seed” keyword or URL and Google will provide you withsome suggested places to start, including:
Keywords that may be suitable for a keyword-targeted campaign
TopAdvert.net
Recommended topics for contextual targetingRecommended affinity and in-market audiences for behavioraltargeting
Suggested sites for your adsSuitable YouTube videos and mobile apps
Play around with some of the options, but before you commit to thecreation and activation of any ad groups, think carefully about the biddingoptions that are available.
Cost per Click (CPC)This is the default option. You’re surely familiar with it by now. Set themaximum bid you’re prepared to pay for each click and, when someoneclicks on your ad, Google will charge you a figure up to and including thatsum.
Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM)Here, you pay a set amount for Google to show your ad 1,000 times,regardless of the number of clicks you receive. This is good for brandawareness, but if you need the clicks for your campaign to be profitable,CPM is rarely effective. It’s just too easy for your budget to blow up andleave you with nothing to show for.
Cost per Action (CPA)This option is only available to you if you’ve already been using GoogleDisplay Network for a period of time. You’ll generally need at least 15conversions in a 30-day period to give Google enough time and data to knowwhat sites and contexts will give you conversions.
Once eligible for CPA, Google will adjust your cost per click based onwhat they know about the person making the click. If Google thinks theperson is a good candidate with a strong likelihood of converting, they’llcharge you more. If they think the candidate is a poor match they’ll charge
TopAdvert.net
you less or even hide the ad entirely.Be aware that with this option you’re putting a lot of control into
Google’s automated hands. To use this option, we recommend you have atleast 100 conversions in the past 30 days. The more data you have, the betterGoogle is at helping meet your targets.
At the time of this writing, Google is introducing a new targeting optioncalled Pay per Conversion. With it, advertisers pay a predetermined amountfor each conversion they get. Subscribe to our email list atwww.perrymarshall.com/supplement for updates on this.
Note that CPC vs. CPM vs. CPA are all different ways of slicing theworld. Broadly speaking, you can carve out an advantage for yourself simplyby bidding differently than most of your competitors. Each of these optionshas its own pros and cons, but once you develop skill and familiarity, you canmake it work for your situation.
Mission Critical: Conversion Code
Never begin any PPC campaign without first being sure thatyour conversion code is set up and measuring results properly.If you’re not getting accurate feedback, you can’t improveanything. See Chapter 10.
SELECTING GDN OFFERSNo one ever goes to a non-Google website hoping to see Google ads. Ifyou’re advertising on GDN, by definition your ads will be shown to peoplewho are concentrating on something else.
That doesn’t mean your ads have to be an interruption or an annoyance.For the most part people accept advertising as part of the fabric of theinternet, television, radio, and print. At worst, we simply tune ads out.
Some commercials go viral and become very popular. People share themon social media and seek them out on YouTube. Super Bowl commercials,
TopAdvert.net
for example, are like this.It may be ambitious for you to take a simple GDN ad and try to make it a
viral success like a Super Bowl ad, but there’s no reason why you can’t createinteresting ads that people genuinely like and appreciate.
Interruption marketing is about gently capturing attention, warmingpeople up with a genuinely enticing and generous offer, and thenoverdelivering in a way that leaves a pleasant, lingering afterglow. On theother hand, dropping people straight into your order form and asking them tohand over some cash with a GDN campaign probably won’t work.
Instead, think of your viewers as being right at the top of your funnel.This means offering them something valuable and intriguing, with few or nostrings attached. Give something away, something for free. Maybe it’s a quiz,a white paper, a webinar, a mind map, or a software demo. There’s nothing Ican think of more effective for a GDN campaign than giving away somethingfor free that contains genuine value. It creates a good impression of yourbrand and it enables you to entice them to return to your website at a laterdate. Plus, you can use the word “free” in your ads! That’s every customer’sfavorite word.
Chisel Your Way in with the Display Network
It might “officially” cost $100 to acquire a customer with bruteforce, but you can still get ’em for $40 if you use finesse.
The Neanderthal way to penetrate a market is to jack up yourbid price.
And sure, if you are the guy or gal who can outspend all others,you can become the 800-pound gorilla.
But that is not the only way.
Imagine this:
TopAdvert.net
Getting more of your ideal customers affordably is likepenetrating a fortress on a day where a thick fog shroudseverything and you literally cannot see three feet in front ofyou.
Yes, you can sit there and fire cannon shots into the mist,hoping that one eventually pounds through the mortar.
You hope that if it does get through, you are actually able tosomehow know it got through, considering you can’t see asingle thing.
Or you could shine some other kind of light at some otherfrequency, like night goggles, clearly seeing that if you standon a 20-foot scaffolding and fire your gun at the perfect angle,you can take out the castle’s entire electrical system in oneshot.
Not only that, there are 40 other angles that could work as well.If you just knew where the general was sleeping, a raven coulddrop a hand grenade down his chimney and it would all beover. There’s also a window where you can see the king’s chairand a round of bullets would take him out in 12 seconds.
In every market, there are MANY angles in.
Understand this: Every specific way of targeting users andbidding on Google’s Display Network is an “angle in.”
Use www.TheDisplayGrid.com to brainstorm and decidewhich combination of targeting and ad type you’d like to startwith.
Managed placement targeting, topic targeting, and keywordand behavioral targeting are the ways of targeting users. Anyspecific combination of two of these (“target these keywordsAND these behaviors”) is usually not being used by one of
TopAdvert.net
your direct competitors.
Cost per impression, cost per click, and cost per action are yourbidding angles, ways into the fortress. The point is to choose aspecific strategy, then optimize it.
Add to this the fact that specific ad types further specify yourstrategy.
When you are getting started—or when you are trying toChisel Your Way In—you need to focus your efforts on aspecific combination that narrows your focus. So forexample you could choose:
target keywords related to tuxedos AND user behaviorsrelated to weddings;
use cost per action bidding and define your action aspeople clicking to the tuxedo order page;
only use 300 × 250 pixel image ads.
This targets a very finite, clearly defined niche within a nichewhere the data you generate will be very clear. Again, it isunlikely that any of your direct competitors are using this exactstrategy, so there will be pockets in the GDN “space” whereyour strategy is superior.
The way to Chisel Your Way In to the fortress is to gain a toe-hold—find a tiny spot where your ads are working; then get afoothold, and eventually, a strangle hold.
Try putting your free gift behind an email capture form. Or you cansimply direct clicks straight to your download page. That’s especiallyworthwhile if you’re doing remarketing. (More on that in Chapter 15.) This
TopAdvert.net
approach is also a winner because it will attract more clicks. It causes Googleto recognize your ad as relevant and show it more frequently, which willresult in even more clicks, which in turn causes Google to show your ad morefrequently, and just like that, you’ve got yourself a virtuous cycle.
Forget Branding: This Is About Results
Pure “branding-only” on GDN will get you nowhere. In theearly days of Google, a few advertisers would try creatingdisplay ads with their brand name but worded in such a way soas to discourage clicks. The goal was to get free brandexposure without having to pay for those pesky clicks. Don’tbother trying to do this now. Google is long since wise to thepractice. If your ad receives no clicks, Google will soon stopshowing your ad altogether.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYIn the next chapter, we’re going to look at some advanced GDN techniquesand discover how to really tap into the power of this network. But first makesure you’ve carried out all of these steps carefully:
Think of a simple free offer or quiz that can form the foundation ofyour GDN campaign.
Go to Google’s Display Planner and research your options on topics,interests, keywords, and websites to target.
Decide whether you want to proceed! If you’re a beginner, you maywish to skip ahead and return to the GDN once you’ve gained somevaluable experience on Search.
Check that your website is probably configured to record conversions.You cannot carry out effective GDN advertising, or in fact any PPCadvertising without a competent system for measuring conversions.
TopAdvert.net
Choose your bidding option. CPC is best in most cases.
TopAdvert.net
H
Chapter 15
RemarketingThe Single Most Profitable Online
Advertising Strategy
ave you ever been reading an article on The Huffington Post andsuddenly noticed an ad there for the espresso maker you were looking
at on Amazon a few days ago?
That’s no coincidence. You had a bull’s-eye painted on your head. You weretargeted by a remarketing campaign.
Remarketing, sometimes called behavioral retargeting, is a way to advertiseto people who have previously visited your website.
One member of my Roundtable, which is my highest-level peer advisorygroup, sold a software-as-a-service solution that employers could use tomonitor employees’ performance. This was a product that a person wouldprobably not go looking for but which intrigued visitors when they saw it.That made it a great candidate for Google Display Network (GDN).However, a quick look and a 30-day free trial offer were usually not enoughto convince visitors to buy.
What he discovered was that people would download the free trial, thenforget about it and move on. However, he found that retargeting ads wereeffective at coaxing prospects into installing the software on his employees’
TopAdvert.net
computers and trying the software out. Then, they would experience the fullvalue and buy.
Interesting application for retargeting ads, don’t you think?Imagine you ran a hardware store, and every visitor who came through
your door willingly handed you their mailing address, whether they made apurchase or not. What could you do with that?
That’s the power of remarketing.Set up a remarketing campaign in your Google AdWords account and you
have the freedom to reach out again to every person who visits your website,long after they’ve left.
Consider all the visitors to your site in the last month who showed interestin your product. They may have added items to their shopping cart, but forsome reason left without completing the checkout process. Maybe somethingdistracted them. Maybe they weren’t going to get paid until Tuesday. Maybethe price was just beyond their budget.
Whatever the reason, they came very close to adding to your bottom line.Here’s where remarketing gives you a second chance—actually, as manychances as you like—to regain the attention of your previous visitors andgive them a reason to come back for another look.
In pay-per-click terms, you’ll never have a group of people to advertise towith more potential for bringing you profit than the folks who have visitedyour site. They know your brand, they’ve already demonstrated that theyhave at least some measure of interest in what you have to offer, and manywill only need a slight nudge to go from warm lead to new buyer.
Remarketing is most popular among ecommerce site owners, but it’s alsoevery bit as effective if you’re a content or affiliate marketer whose primarygoal is to add subscribers to an email list. Even if your website is so efficientthat a full 20 percent of your visitors complete your lead capture form, thatstill means 80 percent of your audience is leaving without taking action. Thislarge group of people is ripe for targeting with a remarketing campaign.
Much of the setup process is fairly self-explanatory, but in this chapter,we’re going to highlight some of the areas that people sometimes forget toaddress and answer some questions that our students ask most frequently.
TopAdvert.net
The New Bicycle: A Remarketing Tale
Our colleague Jeff Martyka of TieMart, Inc. tells thisremarketing story:
Last summer, my nephew told me he was going to get anew bike for his birthday. I asked him how he planned toconvince his parents to buy it for him. “Easy,” he said.“They’ll ask me, and I’ll tell them what I want.”
I realized he had made the same strategic error that manybusinesses make. He was going to take one shot, and oneshot only, at closing the deal with Mom and Dad. Nofurther follow-up, no method to ensure they bought himthe model he wanted—nothing.
Most buying decisions aren’t made easily, whether you’rea parent deciding what to buy your son for his birthday, ormaking other, more weighty purchasing choices.
In the case of my nephew, he needed a way to “remarket”to his parents! So let’s reframe the situation: we have anephew (website) who has been asked by his parents(shoppers) what he wants for his birthday. He says hewants a bike (landing page). Does he get the bike with thisminimal a marketing plan? Maybe . . . maybe not.
To help my nephew out, I developed a “remarketingcampaign” to get repeated “impressions” in front of hisparents so they would be more likely to buy him the exactbike he wanted. He drew pictures of himself with a giantgrin and put them in his parents’ cars so they might takeand display them at work. He cut out ads from thenewspaper showing the bike he wanted and taped them to
TopAdvert.net
his parents’ bathroom mirrors. He found articles abouthow children in the United States are obese and needexercise, and he taped those to the refrigerator. And whilehis dad was out in the driveway washing the car, he pulledhis own (old) bike out of the garage and washed it rightthere in Dad’s full view.
Needless to say, my nephew ended up with the bicycle—the very one he wanted!
FIRST, UPDATE YOUR PRIVACY POLICYYou should already have a privacy policy that addresses your use of cookies.In fact, the wording on your small print may already be broad enough tocover you for the use of remarketing campaigns. Even so, please don’t skipthis part. Google is very strict about its remarketing campaign users having aproperly worded privacy policy. Make those changes before you set up yourfirst campaign.
Visit https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2549063, and followthe directions carefully. Be sure your privacy policy is updated to include:
A description of how you’re using remarketingNotification that the ads you display will show on third-party websites,including Google itself
Notification that these third-party websites will use cookies to selectappropriate ads
Guidance on how to opt-out of Google cookies (which users can do byclicking through to http://www.google.com/settings/ads)
CREATE YOUR CODEBegin by logging into your Google AdWords account, navigating to the“three dots” then “Audience Manager” (in the Shared Library section) andclicking the big blue “+” button:
TopAdvert.net
Google will respond by generating a small snippet of code that needs tobe added to every page on your website. Depending on the size of your site,this may be a bit of work, but it’s a one-time job.
Another way to add the remarketing code to your site is to use a tool suchas Google Tag Manager (GTM). (We’ll go into more detail on this in Chapter29 on Google Analytics.)
You can then do one of two things with this:
1. Ask Google to email the code to your web developer, which they’lldo along with some helpful instructions.
2. Install the code manually yourself.
In a worst-case scenario, you can always hire someone on Fiverr.com todo the job for you.
Once the code is in place throughout your website, every visitor whocomes by will have a cookie installed on their computer that willautomatically track which pages they visit during their stay.
TopAdvert.net
HOW TO BUILD AN “AUDIENCE” TO REMARKETTOYour next and most important job is to create and define your remarketingaudiences, sometimes referred to as RM lists. Simply put, an audience is a listof people who meet certain criteria. You can see at any time how manypeople are on each list you build, but beyond the criteria you select, youwon’t know who they are or anything specific about them. Google keeps thisinformation confidential, for obvious privacy reasons.
And because these audiences are created using cookies, the whole processis completely invisible to your visitors.
We’ll get to crafting ads and fine-tuning the process in a moment, butyour first focus is on getting your audiences up and running. Your lists growautomatically, but it takes time to build up a sizeable audience that you canremarket to—days or even weeks, depending on the volume of traffic yoursite receives. The sooner you complete the audience-building step, the better.
Google will ask you to name your remarketing list and then specify whoto add to it:
TopAdvert.net
There are hundreds of different types of audiences you can create basedon hundreds of different kinds of actions and behaviors. We suggest you startby creating three basic lists, as follows:
1. Everyone. Every individual who visits your site, regardless of whatpages they looked at or the actions they took.
2. Buyers. Everyone who took the desired action, whether it was makinga purchase, completing a lead-capture form, or something else.Simply give Google the URL of your thank-you page, and anyonewho completes an action and lands on that page will get added to thislist. (Note that every visitor on this list will also be on the “Everyone”list.)
3. Interested. These people arrived at your site and visited certainspecific key pages during their stay. Again, you can provide Googlewith the required page URLs that a person must visit to qualify forthis list.
Later in the book, we’ll use Mike Rhodes’s Remarketing Grid tool to finetune your audience selection process. It helps you visualize your remarketingstrategy and make it easier to set up the various campaigns and ad groupsyou’ll need.
HOW LONG DO I KEEP PEOPLE ON MY LIST?Membership duration is key. This is the length of time that individualsremain on an audience list before Google removes them. For example, if youset this at 60 days, anyone who visits your site will drop out of your audiencelist after two months.
Note that if they visit your site again during that period their membershipduration is reset and they’ll remain on your audience lists for a new period of60 days. The default period is 30 days but you can increase this to anythingup to 540 days (18 months).
It might be tempting to just set this for the maximum duration. But keepin mind that the longer the period of time since the visitor has been to yoursite, the lower the CTR your remarketing ads will get.
TopAdvert.net
HOW TO CREATE A REMARKETING CAMPAIGNNow that you’ve created one or more audiences, you head back to the“Campaigns” screen and click the blue “+ Campaign” dropdown button.Choose “Display Network.”
On the resulting page, you’ll notice under “Type” a radio button forRemarketing. Select it. Now you can choose your bidding strategy and setyour daily budget for this campaign.
Your audience lists may start out empty, but over the coming days andweeks you’ll watch their numbers grow. While you’re waiting for this tohappen, make good use of your time by crafting your first campaign with adsaimed specifically at your remarketing audiences.
Don’t try to shortcut this process by copying your existing Search ads.That’s lazy and a colossal waste of Google’s remarketing system. Theaudiences you’re creating are highly targeted individuals who need ads thataddress them clearly and distinctly. Create separate campaigns for image adsand text ads. Within each campaign, create different ad groups for eachaudience.
A word about these settings: Pay special attention to the following threeareas.
Bid Strategy
TopAdvert.net
All the major bidding options are available for remarketing campaigns—costper click (CPC), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), and cost per action(CPA)—but we suggest starting out with CPC. You can change to CPA lateron if you’re getting especially good results from your remarketingcampaigns.
You should also consider bidding at least double your usual amount.Why? Because these people are warm leads. You can expect a higherconversion rate, which will justify the expense.
GeographyLook for this further down the page under “Location, language, and devicetargeting.”
Google doesn’t recommend adjusting this for remarketing campaigns. Ifyour product is digital, you may be fine showing your ads all over the world.But note: if you supply physical products or services and are only able toreach certain geographic areas, then it’s essential that you modify this settingto reflect your target locations.
Frequency CappingYou don’t want to “stalk” people. Find this option by clicking to expand “Adscheduling and delivery options.” You can set your number of impressionsper day, week, or month, and applied per campaign, per ad group, or per ad.
This setting is unique to remarketing and allows you to specify how oftenany one person sees your ads. If you unintentionally show your ad hundredsof times a day to all the same people, it’ll kill your CTR, and it won’t endearyour brand to anyone. We recommend three impressions per day for imageads, and ten per day for text ads.
HOW TO WRITE REMARKETING ADS THAT GETCLICKS AND CONVERSIONSOne of the most attractive elements of remarketing is the way you can writeads specifically to people who have already seen your products and your
TopAdvert.net
brand.However, you never want to forget the Golden Rule of remarketing ads:
Don’t Be Creepy!
Remember the first time you became aware that you were being targetedby a remarketing campaign? How did it feel? “How does Cracked.com knowthat I’ve been thinking about buying a heated toilet seat? Who else knowsabout this?”
Remarketing has been around long enough that most people are nowaccustomed to it. But some people are uncomfortable seeing their webbrowsing habits follow them around from site to site.
How do you respond to that? Answer: Never draw attention to the factthat you’re remarketing to people!
A giant image of your logo with the message, “Hey, we miss you—Whenare you coming back?” is not smart.
We try to observe two simple methods for getting people’s attentionwithout highlighting the fact that they’re a recent visitor:
1. Invite them to take the next action step you with you withoutmentioning any previous steps they’ve taken.
Let’s say you have a three-step conversion process: A person canwatch your video, take your quiz, and then purchase your trainingcourse. And let’s say you want to target visitors who watched yourvideo but haven’t taken any of the subsequent steps. You can write anad that’s simply an invitation to take your quiz. For visitors who havealready watched the video and completed the quiz, your ad can be aninvitation to purchase the course.
2. Follow the “FBI approach.” You can spot a real-life stalker fairlyquickly once you notice that the same guy is hanging around yourstreet every day. The FBI is smarter than that. They employ a numberof different people and rotate them frequently on a calculated basis. Ifthe FBI were following you, odds are you’d have no clue.
You can accomplish the same level of stealth with your ads.Simply create a wide array of visual ad campaigns and use frequencycapping to strictly limit how often each ad is shown on any given day.
TopAdvert.net
SHOULD YOU TRY CUSTOMIZED LANDINGPAGES?In short, yes. But first things first.
Creating a whole new set of landing pages that only your remarketingcampaigns direct to could be a substantial amount of work. We’d rather youset up a remarketing campaign and send people to your existing landingpages than overwhelm yourself with work and give up on the idea.
However, if you’re willing to put in the extra effort of creatingcustomized landing pages with customized offers, your conversion rates willbe substantially higher.
The key here is to identify why your visitor wasn’t willing to go throughwith the purchase and then create an offer that overcomes the objection. Ifyour most common barrier is price, create an ad that offers a 10 percentdiscount. Here’s where that customized landing page becomes essential. If anad promises a 10 percent discount, the landing page needs to back it up.
Experiment with different ads and different offers to see which generatesthe best results. If a 10 percent discount doesn’t do the trick, follow up withanother campaign that offers a deeper discount or an exclusive bonus off.
As with all PPC work, watch your metrics carefully to ensure that yourcampaigns are profitable.
How to Rescue a Failing Remarketing Campaign
Want an example of how to save a bad remarketingcampaign?
Let’s say you write an ad that mentions a promotional code foruse during checkout, but you don’t bother referring to it on thelanding page. If the customer can’t remember the promo codefrom the ad, they’ll give up trying to find it again, and you’velost the sale. Bad remarketing!
TopAdvert.net
But there’s a way to fix this.
Have your web developer program the promotional code intothe URL so the discount is automatically applied to theshopping cart when your customer clicks on the ad. That’s lesswork than creating new custom landing pages. And it’s less“friction” too. The easier you make it for your visitors to getwhat they came for, the higher your conversion rate will be.
SOME ADVANCED REMARKETING TIPSIf your first remarketing campaigns are a success and you want to dig a littledeeper, give these advanced techniques a try.
Analytics RemarketingThis is an incredibly powerful option that pulls data from your GoogleAnalytics to create audiences. Inside Google Analytics are over a hundredmetrics, and once your remarketing campaigns have been running for a fewweeks you’ll have access to a virtually unlimited array of audiences based onany metric or combination of metrics that you can think of.
Want to target people who spent at least five minutes browsing your site?Done. Want to create an ad offer that is only shown to people who read atleast six of your blog posts? No problem. Want to reach out to people whoarrived on your site via Facebook? Easy.
This is why remarketing is one of the most underutilized areas ofmarketing. You can easily turn it into an art form. And it’s one of your besthedges against rising click prices and competition.
If you’re not currently using Google Analytics, it’s worth installing itsimply to give you access to this facility. More on this in Chapter 29.
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)This feature is a way of combining your remarketing lists with your search
TopAdvert.net
ads. Although you initially want to keep these separate, once you have somelists created that are working well you can try running them for some of thebroad keywords that might not be profitable for general search ads. Anothermethod for taking advantage of RLSA is to bid on different levels fordifferent campaigns, still showing the ads to everyone but setting higherbudgets for your more reactive remarketing lists.
To set this up, you’ll want to go into a specific search-only campaign andad group. From there, click on the Audiences from main menu. You’ll see ablue button, which you can click. Then click the “Observations” option andselect “Remarketing lists” to add a list to your ad group.
See Chapter 26 to read more about the various options available whenusing RLSA.
Dynamic RemarketingThis advanced use of remarketing is only available for ecommerce sites thatare using the Google Merchant Center. In this scenario, Google already hasyour product feed and can create ads that feature the products your visitorshave been looking at. If you have a large number of products, this feature cancreate hundreds or even thousands of precisely targeted ads on the fly. This is
TopAdvert.net
incredibly effective and doesn’t require any huge investment of time ormanual labor.
This option is available when you create a new campaign and designate itas Display Network only and specifically for remarketing.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYUnless your website is achieving unheard-of conversion rates, the vastmajority of your visitors are leaving without taking your desired action, and,unfortunately, most will never return, unless they’re prompted to do so. Foryears, internet marketers have tried to overcome this problem by using pop-unders and exit ads. These had limited success and they were extremelyannoying.
Remarketing is the ultimate solution to this problem of “bouncing”visitors. Not only does it allow you to maintain contact with almost 100percent of the people who have been to your site, it does so in a way that’scompletely invisible and carries minimal risk of irritating people.
Yes, remarketing is a bit more involved than most PPC strategies. But ifyou don’t make use of it, your competitors will. For whatever setup effortyou put into it, this will return you benefits and profit tenfold.
Here’s a quick reminder of the basics and the steps you need to take to getstarted:
Update your privacy policy with four key adjustments(https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2549063).
Install the code on your website (or send it to your web developer tohandle).
Build three basic audiences (“Everyone,” “Interested,” and “Buyers”).Create a new remarketing campaign containing at least one new adgroup.
Set frequency capping for that campaign.Create at least two new ads to go with that campaign, preferably more.Activate your campaigns.
TopAdvert.net
Uncle Claude Sez
Here again comes the advantage of figuring cost per customer. That isthe only way to gauge advertising. Samples sometimes seem to doubleadvertising cost. They often cost more than the advertising. Yet, rightlyused, they almost invariably form the cheapest way to get customers.And that is what you want.
TopAdvert.net
M
Chapter 16
YouTube AdvertisingBillions of Eyeballs for Pennies by Tom
Breeze
y good friend Fred got injured and had to back out of a marathon withjust 14 weeks to go. He had already raised money for charity, and
when he asked if I would run the marathon in his place, for some odd reason Isaid yes.
As soon as I committed to the event, I went to Google and searched “How torun a marathon.” I immediately got some troubling advice. Most websitessaid that a person should not even attempt a marathon without at least 25weeks of training. But I had only about 14 weeks left, and I had done zerotraining before that!
Now the pressure was on, and I could not back down. So I kept diggingfor further information.
I found out what shoes to buy. I printed out several training plans. Istarted thinking about what to eat. I bought apps to track my runningperformance. I even bought some new running music.
I started my marathon training research on Google, but before long I waswatching YouTube videos about running form and different types ofexercises. I watched product review videos of all the latest tech devices to seewhat could help me train most efficiently.
To this day, I can still remember those videos I watched. That really is the
TopAdvert.net
power of video: people do not easily forget videos they watch. We can allremember the commercials we saw on TV as kids. You’re probablyremembering one right now, jingle included.
That’s the power of video. It engages our senses. It’s far more vivid thansimple words or images. You get a story, music, and everything in motion. Itcommands more attention. Viewers stick around longer.
And this is further enhanced with YouTube videos. Why?First, YouTube is the home of online video. If people go to YouTube, it’s
because they want to watch a video about something. That’s the wholepremise of the platform. When people visit Facebook, they aren’t necessarilylooking for videos. But for your video they are primed and ready.
And people go to YouTube with specific intent. In fact, there are fourreasons why someone might visit YouTube:
1. People want to watch what they’re into. According to Google, 53percent of online video viewers watch online video to be inspired orentertained. We all do this—we go and watch videos from people orbrands we like to follow.
2. People want to learn something. We also go to YouTube to learn,explore, and research. There’s virtually no topic on earth that youcan’t find a YouTube video for. It’s like a Library of Congress at yourfingertips.
3. People want to learn how to do something. Sometimes text simplywon’t do; you need a video to see how to do something—how to cook
TopAdvert.net
eggs, how to plant tomatoes, or how to run a marathon.4. People want to buy something. YouTube is a great place to check
reviews, learn about a product, and make buying decisions. Hugenumbers of people watch “unboxing” videos, where people filmthemselves taking new products out of their packaging and showingthe viewer what’s included. It’s the ultimate form of windowshopping!
When my wife and I found out we were expecting our second child, Iwent through many emotions (beyond the obvious sheer panic) and then wentinto another intense moment of research. After watching several mums raveabout a particular brand of stroller for two kids, showing how easy it is tofold away, how light it was to carry, and what was included, I bought oneimmediately.
Now, you personally might not go to YouTube for that. That’s fine. Butother people do—lots of them. There are nearly five billion views onYouTube every single day. Your customers visit YouTube even if you don’t.
As an advertiser, you can get your message in front of your customersright at the moment they’re looking for your help. I am going to show youhow to do this—to master YouTube advertising so you can turn viewers intocustomers.
If you’re asking yourself, “Does YouTube have a shelf life?” or “Have Ialready missed the boat?” The answer is no, you haven’t. YouTube is not asocial media fad. It’s not the cool new bar in town where everyone happensto be meeting temporarily. No, YouTube is like the library . . . but not yourgrandpa’s library; this library is used voraciously and is constantlyexpanding. In fact, as of this writing, 300 hours of video are uploaded toYouTube every minute. YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day andthe “watch time”—the number of hours people spend watching videos onYouTube—is up 60 percent year over year (www.statisticbrain.com/youtube-statistics/).
With YouTube advertising, you’re not competing to be on the front pageof Google with your text ads or paying to be on someone’s news feed.Rather, the strategy is about getting your engaging video ads on a rapidlyexpanding platform across hundreds of thousands of relevant videos thatpeople want to watch. So, when you master YouTube advertising, you have a
TopAdvert.net
skill that will serve you for a lifetime.Even though there are lots of brands and companies trying to advertise on
YouTube effectively, very few seem to achieve success. That’s because mostadvertisers treat YouTube like television, using a single creative video addesigned for TV, with no call to action and only the broadest targeting. Thegoal—wrongly—is to “get more views” or raise brand awareness. Sure—ifyou’ve got huge budgets to waste, then that’s a fantastic strategy, but if youwant to see a ROI and build a relationship with your prospects, I’drecommend a different approach.
WHAT WORKS ON YOUTUBE?Think about your viewer. A YouTube user wants to be inspired or informed,either to watch what they’re into or to know, do, or buy something. Sothey’re already motivated . . . but not to see a TV ad or a sales message.
In our business, we preach “Aducation.” The idea is simple, but powerful:Create ads that are, in and of themselves, helpful and useful so that even ifviewers don’t follow you any further online, at least they’ve had a positive,valuable experience with your brand. This strategy helps build rapport andfoster a good relationship between the brand and the viewer, and it meansyou won’t bombard (or worse, annoy) your viewers with a pushy salesmessage.
A basic tenet of Aducation is to focus on one core idea in each ad. Justone. Save everything else for another ad or for your remarketing efforts. Youwant to show your audience that you understand their needs and you have asolution that is right for them.
The focus should always be to provide value to the viewer. Think aboutwhat your customer is doing in that moment that they’re typing in a searchquery. Provide a useful experience to meet that need. This is where a lot ofYouTube advertisers miss out. For example, when I was looking formarathon training plans, it would have been great to see ads for other relatedproducts—long-distance running shoes, run tracker apps, or even hotels nearthe starting line. But they weren’t there!
Timing is everything on YouTube, and you want to be in front of yourshoppers with an ad that is right for them in the buying cycle (what we call“the Moment”). There are three types of shoppers online, and an effective
TopAdvert.net
YouTube ad will talk to each shopper as you would in real life (“theMessage”). Through YouTube’s incredibly specific targeting (“the Method”),we can meet our potential customers in the right moment with a relevantmessage and offer.
Before we discuss the three types of shoppers, let’s talk about theMessage and the Method first.
The MessageIn terms of messaging, your aim is to be as true to real life as possible. Don’tsay or do anything in an ad that you wouldn’t do if you were talking to thatperson in real life. For example, if you had a brick-and-mortar store and sawsomeone eyeing a pair of running shoes in the window, you might strike up aconversation with them: “Do you run?” You might ask if they’re training foran event, how long they’ve been training, what they’re looking for in a shoe.You would then dig into your expertise and make your shoe recommendationbased on their needs. This is healthy human interaction—and it’s possible tohave this same normal, helpful interaction with shoppers online. Informed bythe vast troves of data from Google, you can show YouTube ads with atailored message to each type of shopper by simply structuring your ads incustom ways.
Each ad should have three overall elements:
1. Attention. On YouTube, those first five seconds are life or death.Here, we want to grab the viewer from the start, with video featuringsomething eye-catching, unexpected, or memorable—withoutsuccumbing to gimmicks, of course.
We had a client who promoted trading software. We created an adwhere the presenter bluntly told the viewer that if they were onYouTube to learn more about trading, to STOP! Stop watchingYouTube videos because that wasn’t the way to truly learn how totrade the markets. (The ad was highly effective and ended up beingcopied many times over by other brands and industries.)
Once you’ve grabbed the viewer’s attention, the next goal is toestablish your credibility and expertise. You do this by introducingyourself, your company, or your brand and briefly describing what
TopAdvert.net
you do and what solutions and results you’re able to deliver. Next, it’suseful to give an early, soft call to action before 30 seconds so thatyou can convert leads before you start paying to show the pre-roll ad.Often, we transition from the credibility segment to the soft call toaction by quickly summarizing the substantive benefit to be gained inthe video, but allowing the viewer to click early to learn more.
2. Advice. This is the heart and soul of the ad, the meat behindAducation. In this segment, we deliver value and useful content to theviewer such that the ad could stand alone as a substantive video. Herewe want viewers to learn “what’s in it for me” so they come awaythinking, “Wow! That was worth watching. I want to learn more.” Wedo this by sharing one core idea of content—whether it’s aninteresting fact, a handy tip, or a system of a few short steps that canbe implemented immediately. If you can wrap this content in thecontext of a narrative story or case study, so much the better.
3. Action. After delivering great content and value to your viewers (forfree), you want to give them an incentive to click to continue theirpath to purchase with you. One effective technique is to follow thesubstantive advice section with a future-paced call to action whereyou invite them to imagine how their circumstances would be if theytook the next step with you—for example, by unlocking the fullsubstance that was discussed in the ad in more detail by joining anonline webinar or getting a free trial or product. (Our clients have hadgreat success with free book offers where the shopper only pays forshipping.)
Quick TipsHere are a few short concepts to keep in mind as you navigate the world ofYouTube.
In tests at our agency, we have found that there is no ideal length for aYouTube video. It doesn’t matter if the video is 40 seconds or 14minutes; if the video provides useful content and the viewer continueswatching, there is profit to be had.
Use the words “so you can” or “because” in your copy. They’re useful
TopAdvert.net
tools for driving home the benefits of your product or service.Another excellent technique for instant trust building is the power ofthe “but.” Draw attention to a slight weakness of your product orservice—to show honesty and to build trust with the viewer—only tonegate it directly with the stronger side of the argument. For example,you might say, “Yes, our restaurant is small, but that’s why our dinersreport having such an amazingly intimate experience.” It wouldn’twork if you highlighted how small your restaurant is and then cameback with a comment about how wonderful the lighting is. Your “but”should address the weakness head-on.
In terms of production value, this is the time to hire a professional.You don’t want your advertising to look amateurish. You want aclean and sharp visual aesthetic. Hire folks who know what they’redoing with the camera, lighting, sound, and editing. And put yoursmartphone away—this is not the time for DIY.
The MethodThis is where the magic happens, and where you can strategically, seamlesslyappear before the right prospects at just the right time. YouTube adcampaigns are built on the AdWords platform, so you’ll be familiar with themany targeting options. However, there are some big differences between aYouTube ad campaign and a Display or Search campaign, so let’s discuss thevarious ad types first and then the targeting options.
There are numerous ways of advertising using video. With Displaycampaigns, you can run video ads on the Display Network with nonskippable15- or 20-second videos or lightbox ads. You can even run these ads inGmail. You can run six-second bumper ads. If you’ve got a bigger budget,you can invest in YouTube mastheads. For this chapter, we’re going to zeroin on the “TrueView” in-stream and discovery video ad formats. We’vefound these to be the best place to get started with video ads and it’s wherewe typically see the best results. Google’s TrueView is built on the promisethat you’ll only pay when someone chooses to watch your video ad. For usadvertisers, that’s simply incredible. Here’s how it works:
TopAdvert.net
This is a video ad format you’re probably familiar with. Commonlyknown in other environments as a “pre-roll ad,” AdWords calls this an “in-stream video ad.” You’ll see these play before a video you were about towatch and you have the option to “skip the ad” after five seconds. (This iswhy the first five seconds of your video are so important.) With these ads,you only pay when someone watches more than 30 seconds of it, reaches theend of the video, or clicks through to visit your website. Should someonewatch 29 seconds of your video and then click the “skip ad” button, you don’tpay a penny.
In addition, you get to decide your maximum cost per view (CPV), notunlike a CPC campaign.
TopAdvert.net
These ads are “discovery video ads” (formerly known as in-display videoads). They appear at the top of the search results page. They also show up onthe right-hand side when you’re watching other videos. In this case, you paywhen someone clicks to watch your video ad.
Again, you get to decide your maximum CPV.
TARGETING ON YOUTUBEWhen running TrueView YouTube ads, you have access to all the usualtargeting options. However, because we’re focusing our efforts onYouTube.com as a website, there are a few special distinctions.
Placement targeting can work exceptionally well, as it lets you select theexact video URLs or channels you’d like to advertise on. This means you can
TopAdvert.net
choose to show your ads on any videos that your potential customers arelikely to be watching, including your competitor’s videos (if they’ve allowedadvertising there). Online software solutions such as Veeroll(http://veeroll.com) will allow you to grab hundreds of relevant placementsfor various keywords, which can help you build campaigns quickly.
Keyword targeting on YouTube has its own unique wrinkles as well.Google now bases it on a user’s search history, regardless of the search querythey type in on YouTube. For example, when I did my marathon trainingresearch on Google and then started going through YouTube videos, Googlewould have referenced my search history and shown ads for running-relatedproducts or services . . . even if I were watching cat videos!
Another targeting option we recommend is advertising to similaraudiences (especially those similar audiences built off an existing customeremail list uploaded using Google Match).
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHERNow is the moment when the rubber meets the road and you’ll find that everytype of unique visitor is just that—unique, with their own set ofcharacteristics and searching traits.
Window ShoppersThe Moment: These visitors are curious and have a strong inclination towardyour product or service. They may not be actively searching for what you’reoffering, but your product or service is related to what they’re searching for,which means they’re likely to be interested.
The Message: Your ad should grab their attention, provide some advice oruseful content, and then conclude with a call to action for a desirable offerrelevant to their needs. You may not get the sale at this exact moment, butwith this type of ad you’re building a relationship with the shopper. Forexample, a hotel near the marathon’s finish line could advertise a “marathonrunner’s weekend special” when I was searching for information aboutmarathon training. Very effective.
The Method: Use in-stream or discovery ads and target people usingcustom affinity audiences, similar audiences, and placements of videos or
TopAdvert.net
channels that your audience would be passionate about.
In-Store ShoppersThe Moment: These folks are actively looking for a product or service likeyours. They’re researching a problem or need and, because you have a usefulsolution for them, they’re especially receptive to your message and offer.
The Message: Here, your ad should provide advice or useful content andconclude with a strong call to action. For example, when I was searching for“marathon training plans,” a savvy personal trainer could run an in-stream adsharing his top three tips for marathon training and then invite me to join histraining program. Similarly, as long as I was searching for “best shoes forlong-distance running,” I would have paid extra attention to any ad showingme a specific brand of running shoe along with a call to action to purchase.
The Method: Use in-stream or discovery ads and target with keywordsand placements of relevant videos.
Checkout ShoppersThe Moment: These are the people who are very close to making apurchasing decision. They’re likely watching review or product-comparisonvideos. They may have seen your videos or visited your website already andbe familiar with your brand.
The Message: Although you don’t yet want to push a sales message onthem, you can be more direct about the products or services you offer. Withprevious ads you provide useful advice and information; in this case, yourmessage focuses more on the benefits and features of your product, followedby a strong call to action.
The Method: Use in-stream or discovery ads and target with in-marketaudiences, keywords, placements of relevant videos, video remarketing (topeople who have engaged with your videos before), and website remarketing.
Quick TipsKeep these two main tips in mind and you’ll be rocking the YouTube world
TopAdvert.net
(and the AdWords world) in no time.
When creating your ad, think about what happens when visitors clickto visit your website. Design a landing page specifically to work withyour YouTube ads—not just to be compliant with Google’s policies,but to ensure that there’s an obvious and seamless flow of contentfrom the video through to the offer on your site. And it doesn’t haveto be elaborate: because your viewers have just seen a video ad, theyunderstand you, your product, or your service much more fully than ifthey had clicked over from a simple text or image ad. This means thatyour landing page doesn’t need to do all the heavy lifting to make thesale. A simple and basic landing that easily enables the viewer to optin or buy is all you need.
Track everything in order to optimize and scale correctly. Watch forview-through conversions. If a user sees your in-stream ad and clicksto your website (inside 30 seconds) and then opts in or buys,triggering your conversion pixel, you’ll see the conversion appear inthe view-through conversion column in your account. With in-streamads, it’s only considered a “view” when someone watches past 30seconds; up until that point, it’s only considered an impression. Withthe Discovery Ad format, it counts as an impression when a user seesyour video ad’s thumbnail image. Should that person click, it will becounted as a view as soon as the video loads.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYThink about your ideal customers. Paint a full picture of these people: Arethey male or female? How old? Where do they live? What is their householdincome? Do they have children? Do they use a desktop, laptop, or mobiledevice to look at YouTube videos? Imagine them in a scene that’s part oftheir daily life. For example, picture an early-thirties husband sitting next tohis wife in bed, searching his iPhone for a lightweight, tandem double buggythat will fit through the doorway of his London home.
Now ask: why is he searching through the specific videos that he is?What is he thinking or feeling? What does he need? What triggered him tostart seeking out information in the first place? Where is he in the buying
TopAdvert.net
cycle? What is his biggest problem or frustration? How can you provide asolution?
With the example of our London friend, we know that he and his wifeprobably have some disposable income to spend on a nice stroller. They wantsomething they can use to take their two children around the city, but thatisn’t so bulky they can’t fit it on public transportation or through their ownfront door.
Next, focus on one core idea that you would share if you were to meetthis person in real life. What would you say? Craft your message around thiscore idea using the Aducation template: Attention, Advice, and Action.
So again, with our friend in London, you’ll want to talk about how yourproduct is small, lightweight, and can be easily maneuvered around citystreets.
And then there’s your offer. What will entice the viewer to click throughand follow you further online? What would be most valuable to this person?If you’re selling the stroller, a quick demo video may be sufficient. It alldepends on what your ideal customer finds most useful in that moment.
Finally, you’ll want to choose the right campaign and targeting to ensureyou get in front of your ideal customer when they need you.
Voilà! You’ve built out your first “moment.” Continue to do this exercisefor each moment in your ideal customer’s life focusing just on the one targetmarket you serve. Discuss and brainstorm your ideas with colleagues, friends,or family. Make it fun.
Once you’ve done all of this, build your campaigns on YouTube, scale,repeat . . . and celebrate!
TopAdvert.net
W
Chapter 17
Niche Domination, Part 1Chisel in Where the Chiseling Is Easy
e need to step away from the mechanics of Google AdWords for afew minutes and talk about strategy. Pay close attention to these next
two chapters.
My friend and mentor Dan Kennedy spent years on the speaking circuit.Once, he was in the “Green Room” for speakers with Norman Schwarzkopf,aka “Stormin’ Norman.” In the 1990s, Schwarzkopf was a grand celebrity forhaving won Operation Desert Storm, taking Kuwait back from Iraq, andstopping the armies of Saddam Hussein.
Dan asked Schwarzkopf, “Norman, what was the secret to your success?How did you become such an awesome celebrity overnight?”
He replied, “I only played games I could win. Desert Storm was a gamewe could win.”
Contrast this with the War in Iraq, which in hindsight was a game nobodycould win. Famous marketers and marketing gurus sometimes appear to walkon water. But what we really do is we find places where the water is denserthan a human body and walk on that. We only appear to be defying gravity!
Picking battles you can win is one of the most vital of all marketing skills.And in Google AdWords, you can Chisel Your Way In where thecompetition is thick as thieves . . . or you can target niches where no one hasdecisively claimed the top spot, or the top player is weak or not payingattention. That’s the best way to Chisel Your Way In with minimum
TopAdvert.net
resistance.
THREE SIGNS OF AN OVERLOOKED NICHE1. Good niches almost always have advertisers. If there is a keyword for
which you find no advertisers, odds are 95 percent that there is nomoney in that niche.
2. There is a major unmet need in that market. Sometimes, it is veryeasy to tell. For example, people do search Google for “lemon-scented hand soap” but as you can see here, almost none of theadvertisers on Google specifically cater to it:
Admittedly, the “lemon-scented hand soap niche” is small. But itis unclaimed. “Lemon-scented soap” is bigger and is probably better.In these niches, it will not be hard to write a winning ad and landingpage and become the big fish in the little pond. You might only sellten units a month, but it’s a good start. It is way better than gettingyour head handed to you on a platter by trying to compete in “handsoap.”
3. There is a major unmet need in your market that is not readilyobvious from keyword research. Glenn Livingston has devised a very
TopAdvert.net
easy, elegant way to find this unmet need. The following is adaptedfrom Chapter 21 of 80/20 Sales & Marketing.
THE 80/20 SURVEY TECHNIQUE FOR HYPER-RESPONSIVE INTELLIGENCEPlease pay close attention. This is one of the most important sections in thisbook! It will get you to the money in any niche faster than anything else Iknow. (You will also find an extension to this section in the onlinesupplement for book buyers, at www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.)
Ninety-nine percent of marketers have absolutely NO idea how to usesurveys. They think they’re supposed to ask people what their most importantquestion or need is, then just echo these needs back to them in priority order,kind of like a FAQ. But the problem with frequently asked questions is thatthey’re also frequently answered questions.
Frequently Presented Needs Are also Frequently Catered-To NeedsIn other words, all a standard survey does for you is identify the price ofentry benefits for a market. It doesn’t give you any way of distinguishingwhat needs represent the market gap or where you might position yourselfwith point-of-difference benefits.
Moreover, these surveys typically don’t ask why respondents areexperiencing the frustration they’re experiencing, which really castrates thepurpose of doing the survey in the first place.
For example, it’s infinitely more powerful to know that 40 percent ofyour prospects need a computer that boots up quickly because they’re paidbased upon per-unit productivity, rather than just knowing they need a fastboot. In the former case, you don’t know how to paint the mood and tone ofyour advertising, whereas in the latter you know it’s all about the frustrationsof per-unit workers.
Here’s a simple way to fix this problem. Ask them not only what theirsingle most important question or need is relating to your topic, but why theychose to look for a solution today and how difficult it was to find a good one.
TopAdvert.net
Then score it using the protocol on the following page (which also takes intoaccount each prospect’s level of engagement).
THE 80/20 PROTOCOLSend these three questions to your prospect and customer list; or recruitpeople via forums such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social mediagathering places on your bull’s-eye keyword; or ask on your landing pagethat’s getting Google traffic from your target keywords:
The WHAT question: “What’s your single most important questionabout (keyword)?”
The WHY question: “Why would it make a difference in your life toget a good answer for this problem or find a solution for your need?(Details, please.)”
The HOW DIFFICULT question: “How difficult has it been for you tofind a good answer for the above to date?” (Not at all difficult,somewhat difficult, very difficult)
So what do you do with this information?Quick and dirty summary: You throw it into a spreadsheet. You discard
the “not difficult” and “somewhat difficult” and you only keep the “verydifficult.” Those are the people who really have an itch that they can’t figureout how to scratch.
Then, you throw away the short answers and keep the long answers.What’s left are your most-persuadable 5 to 10 percent who will actually giveyou money for a product that solves their problems. Their answers areliterally a page out of their diary. And you’ll know exactly what problemsyour product has to solve.
There’s a much better approach, however, one that’s much more precise. Ihave devised a simple scoring system for your survey, and you can downloadit at www.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
When you’re done, sort your data by this score (“hyper-responsivescore”), and look at the top 20 percent of responses. Or if you have thousandsof responses, look at the top 5 percent instead: These are your most hyper-responsive prospects, and it’s within those responses you’ll find the most
TopAdvert.net
motivating language, needs, and your point-of-difference benefit.To listen to a full-length interview where Glenn and I discuss depth-
research techniques you can leverage in Google AdWords, please visitwww.LivingstonReport.com.
I cannot tell you how powerful this is. I do “Livingston 80/20 Surveys”on my customers at least once every few months, and, unless I’m having astupidity spasm, any time we go into a brand-new product category ormarket. In fact I have a couple that have been running continuously for years.One has thousands of responses. The market will tell you what its unmetneeds are. If there really is an unmet need, you will not have trouble gettingpeople to take the survey.
If you can’t get people to take the survey, then there’s no water in thatswimming pool. Don’t jump in it. Pick another market and go after thatinstead.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYGet feedback from your prospects before spending huge sums of money onproduct and web development:
Send the three “what,” “why,” and “how difficult” questions to yourprospects.
Keep only the responses from people who indicated it was “verydifficult” to find answers or help.
Look at the top 20 percent of longest responses to see what your mostrabid prospects had to say.
Uncle Claude Sez
TopAdvert.net
Many things are possible in advertising that are too costly to attempt.That is another reason why every project and method should beweighed and determined by a known scale of cost and result.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 18
Niche Domination, Part 2Playing Games You Can Win
his chapter could make you millions of dollars and add years to yourlife.
When I first met Ed Rush, a former Air Force pilot, he was casting abouttrying to find his way in the world. He had recently left the secure,regimented world of the military. The ever-shifting, bloodthirsty world ofself-employment was perilous and scary.
He and his wife were eating baloney sandwiches and ramen soup. She washoping he would figure something out, hoping it wouldn’t take him too long.
He was hoping he wouldn’t be a miserable failure.He tried all kinds of things. He was fascinated with leadership. At one
point he sent me a CD of him giving a talk on leadership. I told him, “Ed,nice try, but leadership is way too competitive of a field, and you have waytoo few credentials to make that fly.”
He did some soul searching, and he realized he knew something fewothers knew: How to become an Air Force pilot.
The odds are heavily stacked against anyone who wants to become a pilotin the Air Force. Ed had deep inside knowledge, he’d had a very successfulcareer, and guess what? People were searching. And nobody sellinginformation on that topic had the credibility he had. It was an under-exploited
TopAdvert.net
niche.Ed told his customers: “I can’t promise you’ll get in if you take my
course, but I can promise your chances will be much, much higher with myhelp than without it.” He added a satisfaction guarantee and created aproduct.
He built a website and started driving Google traffic. That site went on togenerate substantial income for Ed. He became THE dominant player in the“Become an Air Force Pilot” niche.
Ed’s story is a perfect example of how you succeed with GoogleAdWords: You find an under-served niche where you have a strong uniqueselling proposition (USP), and you address the unmet need with your greateststrength.
Most people will say “Yeah, but in my market there already is an EdRush and he’s number one. He’s probably raking it in. Meanwhile, I’m sittinghere at number 20 or whatever the last position is. How do I make thiswork?”
Answer: You do not simply try to be a bigger, badder, more-mojo versionof Ed. You do not go head to head. That is almost always doomed to fail.
Unfortunately, that is what most Google advertisers do. Most Googleadvertisers say, “All I need is better ads, a better landing page, and a betteroffer, and then I can beat Ed and can be number one instead of him.” Well,yes, that is true, but there is almost always some additional element you willhave a tremendously difficult time overcoming. For example, if Ed alreadyhas social proof, such as 100 glowing testimonials, and you’ve got 5, the next95 testimonials are going to take a l-o-o-o-n-g time to get. And by then he’llhave 200.
The way you chisel your way in is, you find a sub-niche that Ed does notserve. For example: “How to get accepted as an Air Force Pilot if you are anAfrican American.”
Now, maybe the process is absolutely identical. Maybe there are nodifferences at all. Maybe your chances are exactly the same whether you’rewhite or black. However, I doubt it’s exactly the same. Even if it is the same,it doesn’t matter. If customers who are searching perceive it’s different for anAfrican American, then there’s a market.
Obviously, you’d almost certainly have to be black in order to pull thisoff. If you’re not black, you’ll have to come up with some other angle. But
TopAdvert.net
the point is, this is a perfect example of locating an under-served sub-niche. IfEd is already the number-one Air Force training guy, it’s going to be veryhard for you to replace him as number one. But if nobody is the number-oneblack Air Force training guy, it’s very easy for you to claim that spot.
This is how you chisel your way in to Google AdWords!Notice that what I just told you doesn’t really have all that much to do
with Google AdWords per se. Certainly it has a lot to do with keyword andmarket research, as I’ll describe in a minute. But it has more to do with yourUSP and your offer.
And really it goes deeper than that. Stick with me because I’m going toexplain one of the most powerful concepts in this book.
THE “WORKING STIFF TO $400 MILLION” NICHEDOMINATION STRATEGYRichard Koch wrote the million-copy-selling classic The 80/20 Principle.When I read it, very early in my AdWords career, it set my mind on fire. Italtered the way I saw everything, especially AdWords. Suddenly, Iunderstood there are tiny levers everywhere that swing huge doors.
Eventually, I wrote my book 80/20 Sales and Marketing. Richard and Ibecame friends. Richard wrote the foreword. He was already the 80/20 guyand I had little chance of displacing him. However, I used the same strategy Ijust described for Air Force pilot gurus and decided to become the 80/20 guyfor sales and marketing. That was a much easier battle to win—I just carvedoff an unclaimed niche, like settlers in the 1800s claiming their free 160 acresof farmland in Nebraska.
Richard Koch has a fascinating story. He started out in corporateconsulting. He did stints at both Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and BainConsulting, the company Mitt Romney is associated with. Though his time atthose companies was frustrating and not outrageously successful (he quitbefore they could throw him out at BCG), he absorbed a tremendous amountof knowledge and insight from BCG’s founder Bruce Henderson, as well asBill Bain.
He left and formed another consulting firm, L.E.K. Consulting, with twoex-Bain colleagues. L.E.K. was enormously successful because Richard
TopAdvert.net
combined the wisdom and experience of Bain and BCG with a completelynew niche and business model, and smart partners.
L.E.K. prospered and Richard sold his stake in the company for $6million.
After the sale of the company, and after taxes, Richard had $4 millionleft. That was 23 years ago. At that point, he became a consulting privateequity investor. He used the vast experience and acumen he’d acquired in hisconsulting years to precisely define:
What kind of companies to invest inWhich niches to pursueGrowth strategy for those companiesWhen you should get inWhen you should get out
In other words, exactly the same things you should be deliberate about asyou maneuver in Google AdWords!
Richard began taking equity positions in small companies.Over the years, he’s applied 80/20 and focused his efforts on 19 select
firms.“Not 190.” Just 19.Half the companies Richard’s invested in have gone on to be
tremendously successful, selling for many times what they were originallyworth. Half his investments have grown 5 to 50 times their size from when hebought in.
This is how Richard Koch has grown his net worth from $4 million in1990 to over $400 million as of 2017.
Richard’s asset base has grown an average of 20 percent per year formore than two decades. If you don’t believe me, get out your calculator anddo the math. $4 million to $400 million in 26 years.
Warren Buffett became the world’s richest man on 20.3 percent peryear . . .
Peter Lynch of the Fidelity Magellan Fund made just 29 percentannual returns . . .
And forget his $1 billion day—George Soros’s Quantum Fund
TopAdvert.net
averaged just 30 percent annually . . .
How is it that Richard can consistently beat the market by double digitsevery year, year after year? How does he attain results within spittingdistance of Buffett and the world’s richest billionaires?
By the way, he’s still 20 years younger than Buffett. He’s not a mutualfund manager. He’s not a corporate analyst. He’s not a mathematician or“spreadsheet junkie” by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn’t have asplay of six computer monitors with charts and market data blaring at himevery day.
ALSO:When a venture capitalist (VC) invests in ten companies, they expect
seven to go belly up, two to do OK, and one to explode to 10X. VCs are thefraternity that gave birth to Facebook and Google. Those guys make billionsof dollars this way.
Even the best are lucky to bat 10 percent.Yet Richard has invested in only 19 and hit pay dirt—serious pay dirt—
on eight. Way too many to ascribe to luck.So here’s the question I have for you today:
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT RICHARD KOCHBATS 50 PERCENT WHEN MOST VENTURECAPITAL FIRMS ARE DELIGHTED TO BAT 5–10PERCENT?And that’s not all, because the icing on the cake is Richard spends, at most,one to two hours per day working on his business.
The answer is that Richard picks his winners based on three factors thathe calls the Star Principle:
1. Your niche is growing 10 percent per year or more2. Your company is number one in its niche3. If you are not number one, create a sub-niche and appoint yourself
number one.
TopAdvert.net
Opportunities that match these criteria are worth your time. They’re theones that are going to grow. You get an exponential return on your time andmoney with Star Principle companies.
I don’t know if Air Force recruiting is growing 10 percent per year, buteverything else Ed Rush did matched the Star Principle criteria. That is whyEd was successful building a lucrative business with Google AdWords traffic.
On the other hand, if you do not have a strong USP, if you are far fromnumber one in your niche, if you go into a niche where there is lots ofcompetition and little to differentiate you from everyone else, or if you gointo a niche that is shrinking (CD manufacturing for example), then all theAdWords techniques in the world cannot save you.
That’s because even if 95 percent of the AdWords advertisers do a lousyjob, which is usually the case, the 5 percent who know what they’re doingwill still beat you.
I’ve created a more in-depth tool where you can evaluate any product ormarket you’re in or choose to go into. The tool scores your business on ascale from 1 to 200, with 100 being the threshold for Star Business status.
Go to www.StarPrinciple.com and get your score. You’ll see a pagethat looks like the image on page 172.
The tool is free and doesn’t require registration. Answer 12 quickquestions and get your score in 60 seconds. If you wish, you can sign up forthe report that explains the tool and your score in detail.
TopAdvert.net
SUCCESS THROUGH ELIMINATIONEvery major success I’ve had in business has matched up to the Star Principlecriteria fairly well. A quick Star Principle test is now one of the first things Ido when evaluating an opportunity or client business.
As entrepreneurs, we thrive on action, excitement, and adventure. Manyof us become adrenaline and activity addicts. Most of us habitually say yes toeverything. But the best thing you can do to ensure future success is say NOto far more opportunities, markets, and even keywords than you say yes to.
We go into even greater depth on the “success through elimination”principle in the online supplement for book buyers, atwww.perrymarshall.com/supplement.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 19
“Deep 80/20”It’s Not What You Think . . . and I Can’t
Tell You How Profitable It Is!
his chapter will teach you the highest-leverage skill that currently existsin marketing.
What I’m about to share is so incredibly important, it would be criminal tonot devote a whole chapter to it. It’s critical. Master this chapter and you’llwork less, make more, be more focused, and feel less guilty about everything.
The 80/20 Rule, aka the Pareto Principle, says:
1. 80 percent of what you get comes from 20 percent of that you do:small effort, big reward.
2. 20 percent of what you get comes from the other 80 percent that youdo: Big effort, small reward.
Most marketers have heard about 80/20. Most think they know what it is.Most people who “know about” 80/20 do not actually understand it. I justwas like everybody else. I thought I understood 80/20. Turns out, I did notunderstand it at all!
A true, in-depth understanding of 80/20 is literally one of the top ten mostpowerful marketing skills. “Deep 80/20” is right up there with getting
TopAdvert.net
website traffic, writing ads, developing USPs and building lists. But here’sthe thing:
All good marketers understand traffic, copywriting, USPs, and listbuilding. But far less than 1 percent of marketers understand Deep 80/20.Read carefully because it will reveal all kinds of places where you are leavingmoney on the table.
Deep 80/20 is one of the main reasons you are reading this book rightnow and not someone else’s. Back in 2003, AdWords was brand-new andnobody fully understood how to make it work. It was a strange beast. Deep80/20 was how I figured out AdWords in the first place. It still is.
I experienced a huge 80/20 epiphany reading Richard Koch’s classic, The80/20 Principle. Suddenly, I saw layers and layers where before I’d only seenthe surface. Eventually, I expanded on this and wrote 80/20 Sales andMarketing. Today I’m going to give you a quick, chapter-sized sample ofDeep 80/20. Pay close attention.
BACK WHEN I THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD 80/20 . ..When I worked a job as sales manager, I heard about 80/20. I printed out asales report from QuickBooks and went through it with my calculator. Yep.Sure enough: 80 percent of our sales came from the top 20 percent of ourcustomers, and the other 80 percent of our customers generated the other 20percent.
Dimitri liked to call me all the time. He would always nitpick about oursoftware and he didn’t buy much. Dimitri was near the top of my time-sucklist and near the bottom of my money list. That 80/20 exercise made merealize he was chewing up time he didn’t deserve. But my thinking stoppedthere. I didn’t think much else about it and moved on.
A few years later, reading Richard’s book, a torrent of insights floodedmy brain. I’m going to share them with you—and show you how tospecifically apply 80/20 to Google ads so you spend way less time, get moredone, sell more, and make more money.
80/20 APPLIES TO JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING
TopAdvert.net
YOU CAN MEASURE IN A BUSINESSSources of incoming phone calls, sizes of commissions for salespeople, sizesof customers, physical location of customers, popularity of products, andquantity of each type of product defect can all benefit from applying the80/20 principle. And yes, AdWords stuff too: keywords, impressions, ads,conversions, and visits to web pages. Just about every metric in this bookobeys 80/20.
This means four-fifths of everything is trivial and only one-fifth reallymatters. This is a huge time saver. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
80/20 ISN’T JUST TWO GROUPS, I.E., “THE 80”AND “THE 20”It’s actually a stunningly predictable power law that you can put on a graph.80/20 says: If you have a column of data, and you know just one or twothings, like the number of items and the total, you can predict with scaryaccuracy how they’re all going to stack up. Here, I’ll show you.
Let’s say the newspaper says, “Southwest Airlines, the 167th largestcompany in the U.S. with revenues of $15.7 billion . . .” Guess what? Youalready know enough to size up the entire Fortune 500.
TopAdvert.net
If you only know that Southwest Airlines is company #167 in theFortune 500 with $15.7 billion revenue, you can accurately predict thesales of the other 499 companies on the list. This graph shows 80/20theory vs. actual data from the Fortune 500 report.
If you know how big #167 is, you automatically know how big #300 isand how big #100 is and how big #50 and #10 are, plus or minus 25percent. You also know the total revenue of the group as well. That’show reliable 80/20 is.
This is tremendously useful and very powerful for marketers. You mightbe leaving a million dollars a year on the table . . . and you don’t know it!Now in less than five minutes, it’ll expose holes in your product line orpricing strategy. I created a tool called the 80/20 Curve(www.8020curve.com) and it accurately predicts where you’re missingopportunities.
THERE’S AN 80/20 INSIDE EVERY 80/20!
TopAdvert.net
80/20 still applies to what’s left after you peel away the bottom 80 percent.Not only does 80 percent of your money come from 20 percent of yourcustomers, but 80 percent of the 80 percent comes from 20 percent of the top20 percent.
That means 4 percent of your customers create 64 percent of yourincome. That’s 80/202. And it’s still true of the top 4 percent: 0.8 percent ofyour customers deliver 52 percent of your income. That’s 80/203. It keepsgoing until you run out of people.
This means you can extract huge amounts of money from tiny groups ofpeople. Or keywords. Or ads or web pages. This is because 80/20 is aninfinite repeating pattern. It’s “fractal”—micro or macro scale—it’s the samepattern over and over. There is always an inequality. Most peopleunderestimate how great it is.
YOU CAN OVERLAY MULTIPLE 80/20S ANDDOUBLE YOUR MOJONot only do you get 50 percent of your business from 1 percent of yourcustomers, you may get 25 percent of your profits from 1 of your 250products. You could easily make 10 percent more profit by pampering fivebig customers and fattening the margins on that one product.
The information age offers you more things to fix, optimize, and payattention to than you could possibly attend to in a lifetime. That’s why 80/20has never been more important.
You have reams of data spilling out of AdWords, Google Analytics, etc.24 hours a day. If you pay attention to the wrong thing, you could waste yourentire life polishing turds.
To give you an idea how universal the 80/20 curve is and how manyboundaries it transcends, let me show you a few quick examples:
TopAdvert.net
Population of the countries of the world, plotted against a 90/10curve. (Source: Wikipedia)
Money that came into the offering plate at a small church in one
TopAdvert.net
week.
80/20 isn’t just a business rule of thumb—it’s a law of nature. So now,let’s look at how 80/20 works specifically in Google AdWords.
As you saw in the examples above, the numbers “80” and “20” are notcarved in stone. Sometimes it’s 70/30, sometimes 60/40, 90/10 or 99/1.Keyword lists are very consistently 95/5. Take a look:
This ad group has 25 keywords, but more than 80 percent of the trafficcomes from two of them. Notice that the top three keywords are just matchtype variations of “how to write a book.”
TopAdvert.net
80/20 IS WHY “PEEL AND STICK” IS SOPOWERFUL!The 95/5 keyword pattern is universal. Peel and stick is simply recognitionthat since 5 percent of your keywords generate 95 percent of your traffic, youcan optimize 5 percent of your keywords by peeling them out and stickingeach one into its own unique ad group.
You get 95 percent of the optimization by doing 5 percent of thework!
Peel and stick is the single most important AdWords skill next to splittesting. That’s because it allows you to happily ignore up to 95 percent of thestuff in your ad campaigns!
This isn’t only true at the keyword level. It’s also true at the campaignlevel. One of my Google accounts has 41 campaigns and 995 millionimpressions. The number-one campaign has 617 million impressions. Onecampaign generates a third of the exposure. That campaign has 28 ad groups,and 80 percent of the traffic comes from the top 11.
The account in total has 3.1 million clicks and 2,857 ads (yes, we’vetested a TON of ads!). The number-one ad has 303,000 clicks. One ad out of2,857 generated 10 percent of the traffic. Five ads have gotten more than100,000 clicks.
You could say the purpose of my 2,000 ads was simply to arrive at adozen killer Google ads—the supreme winners that generated half the traffic—and you would be right.
80/20 also describes:
How many clicks your ads get in each of the 11 ad positions onGoogle search (the top 3 premium spots get 80 percent of the traffic)
Traffic from placements on the Display NetworkConversions from placements on the Display Network (top conversionsources will be different from top traffic sources)
Visitors by city or state or countryConversions by city or state or country (top conversion sources will bedifferent from top traffic sources)
Clicks on the various ad formats and sizesTraffic to each page on your website
TopAdvert.net
Sales for each page on your websiteHow many page views you get from the people who click on to yoursite
How much time your visitors spend on your siteHow much money your buyers spend with youHow many times your buyers buyHow frequently your buyers buyHow long customers stay loyal to you
The 80/20 pattern is truly everywhere. 80/20 radically changes how youmanage your campaigns and your business. It means that most impressions,most clicks, most ads, most keywords, most ad groups, most web pages, mostprospects, and most customers simply do not matter very much.
It also means that a few impressions, a few clicks, a few ads, a fewkeywords and ad groups and web pages and customers determine almosteverything!
When you start, your job is to throw just enough spaghetti against thewall to start to see where it is starting to stick, then immediately channelyour efforts into improving what is working. This is why it’s so important tobuild your business on what people actually do and actually want, so you’renot steering a parked car.
PERFECTIONISM CAN GET IN YOUR WAY!People who are good at AdWords usually have a perfectionist streak. That’swhat makes them good at it. Your perfectionist streak likes the idea ofcoming up with the best possible ad, of doing split tests, of putting up the bestpossible landing page, etc. You’re constantly improving and your job is neverdone. You can always make it better and that’s exciting.
But perfectionism has a dark side. The fact is if you don’t ignore most ofwhat goes on in your Google campaigns, you’ll never have time to focus onthe few things that are actually working.
This is true in all aspects of marketing. Yes, I know, you’ve got a 1,000-page website and you’d love to give the whole thing a facelift. But in actualfact, 75 percent of your business is generated by three of those pages, and nomatter what you do to the least-visited 800 pages on your site, it won’t make
TopAdvert.net
a bit of difference. You have to set hard limits on your perfectionism.Otherwise you perfect the wrong thing.
The real power of 80/20 comes when you make it three-dimensional.Your ads are showing on 15,000 placement sites, but 50 percent of yourtraffic comes from 10 of them. You have 20 landing pages, but 75 percent ofyour leads come from one of them. You have 86 ads, but 20 percent of yoursales come from one of them.
You copy your best ads and you do peel and stick for each of thoseplacement sites. You also copy your best landing pages and make uniquepages just for them.
Then, you optimize. The ideal ad and landing page for each site is goingto be different. So you start split-testing ads and A/B landing pages. It is notunrealistic to expect that even if you already did a good job testing before,that this new level of refinement could double your sales.
Those 10 placements were sending you 50 percent of your traffic, andsince you doubled your conversions, now your whole business has grown 50percent. And you did it with ten minor changes. See the image on page 181.
You can also peel and stick geographical locations—but only do it for thehighest-converting cities. If San Francisco is a great city for you because it’s1 percent of the U.S. population but 10 percent of your sales, then you createa campaign just for San Francisco. You might use unique ads and colorschemes.
But the problem is San Francisco gets way less traffic than the whole
TopAdvert.net
U.S., so it takes longer to test. You can’t test as many things. So you do yourcolor scheme tests just on 250 × 300 pixel banners (which usually get a lot oftraffic). Whatever works on those, you just apply to all the other banner sizes.You don’t bother to split-test the less-common 970 × 250 size because onetest would take six months; this saves you a ton of money in design fees andyou’ll still make good decisions 80 percent of the time.
Visually, it looks like this:
An inevitable consequence of 80/20 is that you sometimes feel like allyour eggs are in one basket. And yes, there will always be a few baskets thathave a lot of eggs. Warren Buffett says, “Keep all your eggs in one basket,but watch that basket closely.”
The biggest “too many eggs in one basket” mistake people make isonly advertising on Google. If only I had a dime for every customer whowas going great guns, then got his ads disapproved or his account banned.Yes, do Google, but do Facebook ads, too. Do direct mail, too. Do LinkedInads, too.
THE MYTH OF THE LONG TAILChris Anderson wrote a book called The Long Tail: Why the Future ofBusiness Is Selling Less of More. He explained that the internet had made itpossible for books that only sell ten copies a year to stay in print forever,whereas in the old bookstore model, obscure titles wouldn’t have a prayer.
Those ten copies a year, on a graph, are the “long tail”—the millions of
TopAdvert.net
items that receive little attention and would never make it in the bookstore.Anderson makes a very valid point, and it’s why so many tiny little tribes
and niches now have a voice on the internet. The phrase long tail is veryuseful because it’s simply the left side of the 80/20 curve.
But you must be careful about the long tail. Received wisdom is that youcan get lots of traffic from “long tail keywords,” keyword phrases such as“how to write a murder mystery book.”
Frankly, that is just wrong. The phrase “how to write a murder mysterybook” got eight clicks in two years. Yes, you should try to be a big fish in alittle pond. But you can’t be any kind of fish in a puddle. This keywordphrase is not worth anybody’s serious time or attention, and while it may adda tiny amount of incremental revenue, it’s completely trivial in the grandscheme of things.
On the other hand, if you can dominate just one high-traffic, high-conversion keyword, you can generate leads and sales for years. If you canimprove one keyword’s ad by 10 percent, you might get a $100,000 per yearraise.
That means there is a right way and a wrong way to do “long tail.” Thewrong way is to just dump thousands of keywords into a campaign. The rightway is to deliberately choose to be a big fish in a little pond and become theking of a small niche that has been overlooked.
There are thousands and thousands of such niches. The indicator is notthat there aren’t advertisers and bidders; rather, it’s that nobody in a niche hasa really great USP and the customers are itching for something more.
The common belief about the long tail is simply wrong. The offline worldis generally 80/20, but many things online are 90/10. Ten percent of thesearch engines (Google) get 90 percent of the searches. Ten percent of theauction sites (eBay) get 90 percent of the auctions.
Yes, the internet has made it possible to sell ten copies per year of someobscure book written in 1913, but it’s made it even more possible forMalcolm Gladwell to sell millions of copies of The Tipping Point.
Winners win big on the internet. My hope for you is that you’ll be the BigKahuna in your market, the number-one player, the alpha dog. And when youdo, it’ll be because you ignored 80 percent and got 1 percent exactly,precisely right.
TopAdvert.net
SOME 80/20 RULES OF THUMBI strongly recommend you pick up a copy of my book 80/20 Sales andMarketing because it will take you much further on this journey. Meanwhile,some handy 80/20 rules:
One-fifth the people will spend four times the money. If you have 100customers who bought a $100 product from you, 20 of them will buya $400 product. Four of them will buy a $1,600 product. 80/20virtually guarantees this will be true.
One percent of the work you did last year earned 50 percent of yourmoney. The only people who normally see this with perfect clarity arestraight commission sales people, but it’s true for pretty mucheverybody.
“Average” is seldom important in Google. Your average keyword, ad,or customer barely matters at all. A few of your keywords, a few ofyour ads, and a few of your customers matter a lot.
Top 20 percent factors—the people and things that make the mostdifference—usually send signals ahead of time. If you ask a surveyquestion, a casual buyer will often answer with a sentence fragment.A hot buyer will talk to you on the phone for 45 minutes.
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will movethe world.” With AdWords, you have a lever. With a great product and USP,you have a place to stand. Just know that 80 percent of your levers will getyou nowhere and 20 percent will make you rich.
You can purchase 80/20 Sales and Marketing atwww.perrymarshall.com/8020.
TopAdvert.net
N
Chapter 20
How to Get Customers to Eat Out ofYour Hand
Get the Biggest Money from YourCustomers When You Give ThemExactly What They Want to Buy
ext time you roll out a new product, you can have a 75 percent or betterchance of success by using Google to measure your traffic. You can
know exactly how much demand there is for your idea. You can test yourheadlines and copy and have your potential customers tell you exactly whatkind of product they’re looking for.
Google makes this far less expensive and far less risky than ever before.
Here’s one such example of powerful, real-time market research on theinternet.
How Google Quickly Assessed the Viability of an EventName . . . for Two Dollars and Seventy-Eight Cents
TopAdvert.net
By Perry Marshall
I was the marketing and publicity director of TruthQuest, a localnonprofit group that hosts speakers and discussions on a variety of hottopics in religion and theology.
After the smash success of the Lord of the Rings film, its sequel TheTwo Towers followed suit the next winter. We found ourselves aspeaker, Professor Jerry Root of Wheaton College, who could talkabout this movie and the philosophical point of view of its author,J.R.R. Tolkien.
No matter how great the speaker may be, it doesn’t matter if nobodyshows up. So the title of the event was crucial.
Somebody suggested a preliminary title: “Is Lord of the RingsChristian?” But I didn’t like it. Not intriguing. Too easy to say no oryes and forget about it.
The more marketing I do, the less I trust myself, even, to pick a goodtitle. So our group brainstormed four titles and let the world vote onthem. I used Google AdWords and had an answer in just 18 hours.
What Happened When We Ran the Overnight TestI took our proposed titles and made four ads, all rotatingsimultaneously. I purchased the keyword “Tolkien,” as well as“Tolkein,” a common misspelling that people often mistakenly searchon.
I started running the ads on Google at about 3:00 P.M. on a weekday and
TopAdvert.net
stopped it at 8:00 A.M. the next morning. Here’s what the ads lookedlike, along with their results:
The Two Towers Lord of The RingsTolkien, The Two Towers, and and The Spiritual PowersSpiritual Symbolism of Hobbitstolkiensociety.org tolkiensociety.org11 Clicks | 1.0% CTR | $0.06 CPC 8 Clicks | 0.7% CTR | $0.06 CPC
Spirituality of Tolkien Tolkien SpiritualityHidden Messages in Is There Hidden ChristianityThe Two Towers In The Two Towers?tolkiensociety.org tolkiensociety.org20 Clicks | 1.9% CTR | $0.05 CPC 16 Clicks | 1.5% CTR | $0.06 CPC
We found out:
1. Clickthrough rates were dramatically different for differenttitles. The winner was “Spirituality of Tolkien: HiddenMessages in The Two Towers.”
2. This was vastly better than doing a “focus group” or a surveyof our friends. Why? Because when people read about this inthe newspaper or on a flier, their decision either to continuereading or to ignore it is made on impulse. They don’t sit andponder it. The decision to click on a link is equally impulsive.
3. This is a great way to come up with titles for magazinearticles, white papers, books, and names for new products.And believe me, the votes you get will surprise you. What you
TopAdvert.net
think sounds cool is probably not what your customers think isrelevant.
You can use this exact method to test the marketability of almost anyidea you have. You can take it a step further than I did by bringingvisitors to your own website and further testing their response todifferent offers.
HOW TO BE SURE THERE’S A MOREPROFITABLE MARKET FOR YOUR IDEA BYDEVELOPING A PRODUCT AFTER YOURCUSTOMERS TELL YOU WHAT THEY WANTLet’s say you’re thinking about writing a software program for doingautomotive repairs. It’s for do-it-yourself car enthusiasts, and it does enginediagnostics that help increase your fuel efficiency by five miles per gallon.
If a guy bought your software (which you haven’t written yet), he couldbuy a cable at Radio Shack, take his computer into his garage, hook it up tohis car, and your software would collect a load of data and display it on thescreen. Your program would then tell the guy what to tweak in his engine.
Sounds like a great idea. But how do you know there’s a market for this?You can find out if there’s water in the swimming pool before you dive
in. You certainly don’t want to spend weeks writing software if nobody’sgoing to buy it. So here’s what you do:
1. Write an ebook, white paper, or guide. Call it “How to Use EngineDiagnostics to Improve Your Car’s Fuel Efficiency by Five Miles perGallon.” In it, you tell people how to do it the hard way. The wholeroutine that takes you three days, including the spreadsheet and theconnector from Radio Shack.
2. Head over to Google and bid on starter keywords. Find all of themajor terms related to engine diagnostics.
3. Post an ad like this:
TopAdvert.net
DIY Engine DiagnosticsSimple Procedure ImprovesYour Car—5 MPG or Betterwww.AutoDiag.com
On your landing page, you have a sales letter that tells them about yourebook. You can also follow up with a series of emails that talk more aboutthis.
1. Get ideas and feedback from your readers.2. Sell the ebook. Or even give it away for free. But not without a plan.
While you’re marketing your ebook, you’re going to take the nextstep with your buyers.
3. Test your customers’ response to your actual product idea. What dothey say back to you? Are they interested? Do they pester you to findout when this will be available? Do they offer to pay you for it now,hoping to get first dibs on it when it comes out? If so, you knowyou’ve got a winner.
4. Sell your product, and the dollars will come rolling in.
You’ve listened to your customers, you’ve put together a product in linewith what they ask you for, and you’ve proven to yourself that they’reinterested. Now when you give them exactly what they want, you’ll make thecash register ring.
WHAT YOU LEARN WHEN THIS DOESN’T WORKTHE FIRST TIME OUTNow, what happens if it’s a flop?
Don’t cry in your milk—learn your lesson and get on with somethingelse. You can come up with a new idea and test it for no great sum of money.
And what if the idea is only marginal?Play with it. Change your ad, change your landing page, fiddle with the
title of your report or ebook, adjust the price if you sell it, give visitorsincentives in exchange for lots of feedback, and try again. If it won’t work,then move on. If you can clear out the bugs, then run like the wind.
TopAdvert.net
Did you know that infomercials also run on this same premise? It costs$50,000–$100,000 to produce an infomercial and run it for a few days. If theproducer can get 80 percent return on investment (i.e., only lose 20 percent)the first time out, he won’t scrap the project. He’ll play with the offer, theupsells, the testimonials, and the other ingredients until he gets it above hisbreak-even point. And he’s not afraid to cut his losses if he has to.
When you test ideas that don’t work, fail fast. Get it over with as quicklyas possible. Spend the money, get the results, cut your losses, and move on.
“Wait a minute,” you might be thinking, “I don’t have hundreds of dollarsto blow on pre-testing. I can’t afford to do that.”
The reality is, you can’t afford not to. Spending those dollars and goinginto the red now could save you thousands of dollars later in botchedadvertising and mediocre returns and can prevent you from having to startagain from scratch.
The Insights You Get When Customers Vomit All OverYou
By Bryan Todd
I spent more than four years in mainland China, during which time Iwent from not even knowing how to say “hello” to becomingconversationally fluent in the language. It saddened me as I watchedmany of my Western friends there struggling with the language andgetting nowhere.
I learned through trial and error a host of practical, working methodsfor acquiring the language. Multiple times during my stay there, my
TopAdvert.net
American and European friends would tell me, “Wow—you need toshare your whole method with me because whatever it is, it’s obviouslyworking.”
So, I listened. And after returning to the USA, I sat down to write abook that would teach other English speakers to do just what I did. Ithen decided to take our marketing advice: I wrote a series ofautoresponder emails and bought Google traffic first, planning to sellthe book to customers later. I was a newbie at the time. I set up myGoogle campaign, sent traffic to my new website, and let it go. Andhere are two of the responses I got:
You have shown me absolutely nothing. You have wasted my timeand paper printing off your worthless emails. I learned more infive minutes from a Chinese business website than I could everexpect to learn from your time-wasting activities.
—D.M.
You have not provided me with any practice Mandarin lessons,which is what I wanted. Instead you provided generic information,as a “carrot” to buy your course. This is a scam.
—F.P.
Oh, crap! Here I am in the middle of writing a book about learning thelanguage living in China, while these people are in their home countrylooking for simple online lessons.
Thank God I hadn’t created a whole product yet.
But get this: they did tell me exactly what they were looking for. Thefirst guy above left me the URL of the Chinese business site he hadmentioned, so I could go and compare. The second guy told mespecifically that he wanted “practice Mandarin lessons.” Othersweighed in, too.
TopAdvert.net
These people wanted online lessons. I didn’t have the resources to putsomething like that together at the time. But I logged it away to pursuein the future.
Now what about my ebook? Should I cancel the project?
No. I knew from experience with friends that I had something oftremendous value. But how was I going to find the folks who reallyneeded it?
I finished the book and set my ads to show only in Taiwan andMainland China—not even in Hong Kong, where Cantonese andEnglish are more common than Mandarin. I turned on the traffic again.
When Your Machine Finally Kicks InAnd that’s when the positive emails started pouring in. Grateful readerswho had moved to China and Taiwan from the U.S., Israel, Germany,Australia, the UK, New Zealand, India, and from all over the globewrote in to tell me that they were finding my email course to be helpfuland relevant.
More important, they were buying the book and telling me that theywere using it. I even found myself doing late-night telephoneconsultations to Beijing with my customers now, helping them improvetheir Chinese-learning strategy even further.
In reality, the book is an invaluable resource regardless of whatlanguage a person is learning. The principles are universal and applyanywhere in the world. Still, focusing on China and Taiwan paid off.
One buyer sent me this:
At about midnight last night, I paid for and downloaded yourproducts. I thought I would take a quick glance before going tobed.
It is now five o’clock on Sunday afternoon, and I haven’t been to
TopAdvert.net
bed yet. I read the entire document twice; your bonus article threetimes. During this time, I experienced a gamut of emotions;everything from the knowing smile, kissing the computer screen,wildly punching the air, and dancing around the room.
Your product is excellent, Bryan, and worth every cent I paid forit. For the price, I could not have had a better night! Don’t eventhink about returning my money, as I love your work, and I amlooking forward to any stuff you do in the future.
—Andrew V.
When you find your market, boy, do you ever find them! Giving peopleexactly what they need and then having them turn around and thankyou for it is the true joy of marketing.
The market spoke. The book sold. I made a profit. People like Andrewwrote testimonials, which in turn sold more books.
When Your Market Speaks, and You Respond, It’s Money in theBankStart small with Google, and when your market talks, listen. You’llknock your head against a few walls in the early going, but there’s nobetter education to be had.
In fact, behind every angry rant you hear is someone who didn’t getwhat they really wanted. Go with what your prospects tell you theywant. And don’t ever stop asking. Especially when your existingcustomers talk. That’s as good as money in the bank.
Since I lived in China for four years, I listened for four years as friendsand acquaintances complained about their struggles in learning thelanguage. That taught me what I needed to create for people.
Then, I spent two weeks listening to my Google visitors in order todiscover where I needed to market it.
TopAdvert.net
Then, Andrew used the book. It improved his Chinese. He wrote backto tell me about it. His testimonial resulted in more sales. He went onand told friends and coworkers. Word traveled around. More peoplebought.
That’s exactly what people will do for you when you hit their sweetspot.
We still take our own medicine. The title of this book, The UltimateGuide to Google AdWords: Access 100 Million People in 10 Minuteswas derived from the following ad, which was our control ad onGoogle for four years:
Beat The AdWords SystemAccess 100 Million People in 10 MinThe Definitive Fast-Start Guidewww.perrymarshall.com/adwords
I did similar tests on Google to arrive at the title 80/20 Sales andMarketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More. Itested more than 50 variations. Google ads remain one of the bestplaces to test product names, bestselling book titles, and anything that’sgot to pass muster with tens of thousands of people.
Uncle Claude Sez
TopAdvert.net
Almost any questions can be answered, cheaply, quickly, and finallyby a test campaign. That is the way to answer them, not by argumentsaround a table. Go to the court of last resort: the buyers of yourproduct. . . .
We establish averages on a small scale, and those averages alwayshold. We know our cost, we know our sale, and we know our profit andloss. We know how soon our cost comes back. Before we spread out,we prove our undertaking absolutely safe.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 21
Quality ScoreMaking Google’s “Bozo Filter” Work for
You
once did a consultation for an adoption agency. My wife and I adopted alittle girl from China. We love her like crazy, so adoption is near and dear
to our hearts!
When I looked at the agency’s Google account, it broke my heart. It was anabsolute mess. All kinds of keywords dumped into this campaign or that,willy-nilly, with no rhyme or reason. The keywords didn’t match each other,the ads didn’t match the keywords, and the landing pages didn’t match theads. The whole thing was like a Picasso painting. That is great if you’re doingart, but it’s a terrible way to run a business.
Luckily, their AdWords account was still working, and it was bringingthem some customers. As I looked closer, I saw the only reason their clockwasn’t getting totally cleaned was Google’s Quality Score algorithm.Because everything was so mismatched, most of their keywords had QualityScores of 1 to 3. The keywords were underwater and the ads weren’t showingat all. Only a few keywords, which were lucky enough to be OK, weregetting traffic at all.
It was at that point that I realized Google’s Quality Score algorithm ismostly designed for the lowest common denominator. It saves the averageadvertiser from paying a hideous stupidity tax and ensures that what little
TopAdvert.net
they accidentally do right does generate some results.As the client repaired the damage, slowly but surely their Quality Scores
went up, traffic went up, cost per click went down, and more adoptive parentscame in.
GOOGLE PAYS YOU TO BE RELEVANT!Can you think of any aspect of your business where making more moneyresults in third-party suppliers charging you less?
We’re not talking about vendors giving you bulk discounts. We mean—literally—the more profit you make the more your provider slashes your finalbill.
It just doesn’t happen, right? It’s always the opposite:
When your business earns more, you pay more taxes.When you ship more, your shipping invoice is larger.When your TV commercial produces sales and you want to increaseyour airtime, the network ups the bill.
There is one exception. Google’s PPC network rewards success. Simplyput:
The better your ads perform, the cheaper they get.How is this possible?When AdWords first sprang into life circa 2000, it catered to large
websites with lots of financial clout. But Google anticipated far more profit ifthey could attract a healthy percentage of the world’s small and medium-sized online businesses as well.
With this in mind, Google did an AdWords reboot in 2002 andsuccessfully signed up scores of new clients.
However, Google had already seen other PPC companies like Overturestumble badly with poor quality ads. If the top spot was sold only to thehighest bidder, then the system would always favor the largest companieswith the deepest pockets, not unlike large airlines squeezing out independentoperators. Big dumb companies could write stupid ads and still show at thetop of the page. Most small businesses couldn’t compete.
So Google added a layer of sophistication: they made your position on the
TopAdvert.net
page a function not only of your bid price but of your clickthrough rate aswell. If your CTR was higher than your competitor’s, your ad would showhigher on the page, even if you bid less.
The concept was simple: Make quality more important than money. Ifyou bid lots of money but wrote terrible ads, you’d disappear from the resultspage entirely. If you had little money but clear, interesting ads, you could getto the top of the page.
Google believed this would result in:
Better, more relevant results pages, making Google more attractive tousers than other search engines;
More money for the smartest advertisers, who would in turn be eagerto spend more;
Increased profits for Google.
In other words, a win-win-win.They made some modest tweaks to this over the subsequent years, and in
2005 they started calling this the “Quality Score.”Then it became time for Google to tackle a second issue: Advertisers
fighting over clicks using bait-and-switch tactics.Let’s say you ran a site that provided information on treating gout. You
could get scores of clicks to your site by writing ads such as, “Britney SpearsGout Photos.” (She was still a big deal then.) It didn’t matter squat if yourwebsite had no such photos or content; your CTR would be through the roofand your clicks would be cheap.
So Google had to deal with that, too. In 2006, they introduced the landingpage Quality Score to the mix. Now the content on your site had to berelevant, too. No trickery, no deceit, no useless content that made visitors hitthe back button.
Google’s prediction came true: a better experience for everyone searchingon Google, more affordable clicks to the smartest advertisers, and more profitfor everyone.
Craig Danuloff calls the Quality Score system a “bozo filter.” It weedsout the “accidental bozos” who write bad ads because they don’t know howto be relevant, and it weeds out the “intentional bozos” who are trying togame the system.
TopAdvert.net
As long as you’re not a bozo, the system is heavily weighted in yourfavor. Think of it as a preferred customer program (what Australians like tocall “mates rates”).
If there’s any downside at all, it’s that Google’s exact Quality Scorealgorithm is confidential—not unlike their main search engine algorithm. Tocreate a level playing field for advertisers, they’re not above sharing generalprinciples and a few details here and there. But they keep specifics tothemselves and they regularly tweak the system.
Why Improve Quality Score?Google wants to show more good ads. If your account is in good standingwith them, you’ll get more impressions, your ads will show more often, andQuality Score will be high.
If Google regards you as a good advertiser (i.e., providing a goodexperience to their users), then you’ll be rewarded with cheaper clicks. But ifyou don’t play by Google’s rules, the cost of your clicks will increase overtime.
WHAT’S YOUR QUALITY SCORE?To find your Quality Score, log in to your AdWords account, choose acampaign or ad group to view, click the columns icon, then “modifycolumns,” then under “attributes” tick the “quality score” option
TopAdvert.net
Once that column is displayed, you’ll see a score between 1 and 10 foreach of your keywords. You may see “--”. This means Google does not haveenough information yet to assign a score to a particular keyword. Come backand check again once that keyword has more impressions.
Note that you as the AdWords advertiser only get to see one QualityScore number shown for each keyword. However, behind the curtain thereare many different Quality Scores calculated in real time, which varydepending not just on how you construct your campaigns but on what Googleknows about the person searching.
For instance, your ad may have one Quality Score for a searcher from theUK on an iPhone, and another for a searcher from Australia using a laptop.
Although it’s possible to find a Quality Score number for each of thekeywords in your AdWords account, consider it a general guide rather than amathematical certainty. At best, it will help you to figure out which of yourkeywords and ad groups could use a little work and which are best left alone.
Again, remember this is a guideline, not a precise set-in-stone number.It’s an average score for each keyword, with a much more complicatedcalculation happening invisibly behind the scenes. The rating you’re given ineach case is also the most recent calculation. It may have recently increasedor decreased, but there may not be any indication in the AdWords interface.
TopAdvert.net
Now that you know your numbers, what should you do about eachkeyword and its Quality Score? Here are some guidelines:
9–10 Excellent. Don’t change anything. You’re right on point and areprobably paying the lowest possible price for your clicks.7–8 Very Good. You’re doing fine. You could push your score a bithigher and it might be worth checking that you’re not missinganything obvious (such as having this keyword crammed along withtoo many others into a single ad group). But don’t spend hugeamounts of time trying to improve it.5–6 Average. These are the keywords that could benefit from a littlebit of additional TLC.3–4 Poor. This is a warning. Your ads for this keyword aren’tshowing very often and when they do you’re probably paying wellabove average for each click. If the keyword in question has thepotential for high volumes of traffic, then fixing the Quality Scorehere should be your priority.1–2 Terrible. At this level, Google is barely showing your ads for thiskeyword and is charging you a fortune per click. Take actionimmediately!“--” Not enough data yet to assign a Quality Score.
SO WHAT FACTORS GO INTO QUALITY SCORE?You could compare Quality Score to monthly mortgage payments that varydepending on how you look after your house. Mow the lawn, take out thetrash, and your payment goes down.
But does Google prefer your house to have a red roof or a black one?That’s where things get tricky. Maybe you paint your house red this
month. Maybe next month, your mortgage payment goes down even further.But was it because you painted your house or some other cause?
Plenty of PPC experts have experimented and drawn helpful conclusionsabout how Google rates its advertisers. And at the very least, Google hasbeen up front about the most important factors in its Quality Score.
You can visit https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2454010 forthe most current explanation, but below is our summary of the key items,
TopAdvert.net
along with our assessment of the ones we feel are the most significant.
Clickthrough Rate (CTR)This should be a priority for every PPC marketer. Of all the things Googlecares about, CTR is always at the top of the list. According to FrederickVallaeys of Optmyzr (www.optmyzr.com), your CTR (compared to yourdirect competitors) contributes two-thirds or more of your Quality Score.
The logic is simple: if users click on Ad 1 more often than Ad 2, thenGoogle assumes that Ad 1 is the more relevant and interesting one. ButGoogle doesn’t look at the CTR of each ad in isolation; it also takes intoaccount the CTR that other advertisers obtained for the same keywords thatyou’re bidding on, the position on the page on which your ad was shown, aswell as the overall CTR you’re receiving for all your ads across all your adgroups.
You’re graded on the curve, in other words.
Landing PageSome site owners try to create a unique landing page for every ad. Thatcertainly makes for relevant landing pages. The problem is that it’s very time-consuming, probably expensive, and may make tracking your conversionsunnecessarily complex. The truth is that the relevance of your landing page isonly moderately important compared to the CTR of your ad.
Google measures the quality of your landing page in a number ofdifferent ways, but there are five factors that stand out:
1. How relevant is your ad to your landing page? Yes, this is subjective.If there’s a match between the words in your ad and the words onyour landing page, this is a good start, but that alone doesn’tnecessarily translate into quality.
Google probably measures how long each visitor stays on yourlanding page before clicking the back button. If visitors jump back toGoogle after only a few seconds, Google may conclude that youdidn’t deliver what you promised. If visitors stay on your landing
TopAdvert.net
page for several minutes or don’t return to Google at all, this helpssuggest you provided something of genuine value.
2. How transparent is your landing page? If the thing promised in yourad is available immediately on your landing page, Google considersthis “transparent.” If you require the visitor’s email address beforeproviding any information, benefits, or freebies, then Google will beless impressed.
You can always ask for email addresses (“squeeze pages” are notforbidden), but you must ensure that your landing page allows visitorsto find good, useful information first without any strings attached.
3. Is your landing page easy to navigate? Design your page well sopeople don’t have to hunt around for information. Don’t annoy yourvisitors with popups or other features that interfere with thenavigation of your website (e.g., disabling the back button).
4. Is it mobile friendly? With over half of all searches being done onmobiles these days, Google wants to make sure your site is easy touse on all devices. Go to https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com totest your site. You’ll get a score, plus tips to improve your site.
5. Does it have a fast loading time? Your landing page needs to loadquickly regardless of whether someone is using a desktop, tablet, ormobile.
Keyword-to-Ad RelevanceThis is about the relationship between the search query typed in by the personsearching, your keyword, the words in your ad, and the words on yourlanding page.
Every ad group needs to center tightly around a keyword theme andcontain a small number of keywords. You can certainly dump all yourkeywords into just one or two ad groups, but your CTRs will suffer.
For example, if I type in “chiropractor,” I’m not likely to click on your adunless it has “chiropractor” in the headline. If I type in “sciatica” and your adsays “sciatica relief,” I’m far more likely to click on your ad. If it only says“back pain relief,” then I’m far less likely to click.
The only way to account for all this is to have separate ad groups for each
TopAdvert.net
of these types of keywords. In this example, one ad group for variations on“chiropractor,” one on the theme of “sciatica,” and one about “back painrelief.”
Geographic PerformanceGoogle keeps track of where people are clicking on your ad. If, for instance,users in New York are clicking on your back pain ad more often than users inPhiladelphia, your ad will be given a different Quality Score for each of thesetwo different areas. (Note: You won’t see this reflected in any of yourAdWords reports; it happens behind the scenes.)
Targeted DevicesGoogle keeps track of how well your ad performs on each device, and they’llassign you a different Quality Score accordingly.
Quality Score on the Display NetworkIf you’re using CPM bidding, Google will only consider the various landingpage quality factors as listed above.
If, however, you are using CPC bidding, Google will also factor in thehistorical CTR of your ads.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR QUALITY SCOREHere’s a quick summary of the fastest and most effective methods forcranking up your score by a few notches:
Aggressively Split-Test Your AdsCTR is the biggest factor in your Quality Score, and the best way to improveCTR is by testing new ads. The object is to beat the performance of your oldads. (See Chapter 6 on split testing.)
TopAdvert.net
Split Out Your Keywords into Small, Targeted Ad GroupsThe fewer keywords you have in each ad group, the easier it is to make yourads relevant and the easier it is to push up your CTR.
Important tip: One factor in Quality Score is your overall CTR acrossyour entire account. Optimizing all of the high-traffic ad groups in eachcampaign is highly recommended.
Make Your Landing Pages More RelevantThink of the landing page element of your Quality Score as pass/fail. If yourpage is good and improving, then spending time on it is only going to make asmall difference. If your page is especially bad, go after the obvious issue youcan find and fix it. For example, if your landing page contains nothing but anemail opt-in form, you’ll want to put some additional copy, information, andeven navigation on your page so that visitors have the freedom to learn moreabout you before deciding to share their information with you.
As a general rule, if your Quality Score is 4 or lower it’s because yourlanding page is poorly thought out. If you’re already at 5 or higher, yourlanding page is probably fine and you should make it a priority instead toimprove your CTRs.
Negative KeywordsThis is a dynamite method for improving your CTR—one tiny change canliterally double your results—but it’s definitely not for total beginners. Onewrong negative keyword can flatline your account. If you’re going to givenegative keywords a try, roll them out carefully into your ad groups, a coupleof keywords at a time, and allow a few days between attempts so you canmeasure the results of your changes.
What are negative keywords?Imagine you sell a product that treats hair loss in men. Pretty good chance
one of your main keywords will be the phrase match “hair loss.” But peoplesearch on “hair loss” for their pets, too. How do you deal with those folks?
That’s where negative keywords come in. You can prevent your ads fromshowing for any person who searches on hair loss for their pet. Open the
TopAdvert.net
Keywords tab, go to the Negative Keyword section, and enter the words youwant to exclude (negative keywords are always preceded by the minus sign):
–dog–pet–animal–cat
You can apply a set of negative keywords to one specific ad group or toan entire campaign. In the case of your hair loss treatment, the latter makesthe most sense. Now, whenever someone searches for the words “hair loss”but also includes the words “dog,” “pet,” “animal,” or “cat,” your ad isautomatically prevented from showing.
Negative keywords are powerful because they eliminate irrelevantimpressions. If you have 1,000 impressions and 50 clicks, your CTR is 5percent. If you use negative keywords to cut out half of those impressionsand show to 500 people, but you still get 50 clicks, then your CTR just wentfrom 5 percent to 10 percent.
Fewer irrelevant impressions means better CTR and better Quality Score.That’s the power of negative keywords.
The easiest way to find negative keywords is to go back through yourkeyword research and pick out words that you rejected because theyreferenced product lines or services that you don’t provide.
You can also find negative keywords using Google’s Search QueryReport under the Reports tab (“Search Terms” is a pre-defined report) orunder the Keywords tab. Within any campaign or ad group, click the “SearchTerms” tab across the top of the screen, or to see terms related to a singlekeyword, or small group of keywords, tick the check box to the left of thekeywords, then click “Search Terms,” in the blue bar above the Keyword list.
TopAdvert.net
Google will show you all of the search queries that they chose to showyour ads for, along with data on how you’re performing for each one. Findunderperforming terms and turn them into – negatives:
This is a great way to efficiently clean up the performance of yourkeywords and ads and boost your Quality Score.
That said, be sure to apply negative keywords slowly and monitor yournumbers carefully. One wrong word in your negative keyword list canseriously damage your results.
THREE MYTHS ABOUT QUALITY SCOREMyth #1: Match type matters. Google only considers the exact match of any
TopAdvert.net
keyword in your account when calculating Quality Score.Myth #2: Low CTR on the Display Network hurts your Quality Score. It
doesn’t. Google understands that Display Network Ads are going to get lowerCTRs. They take this into account. Quality Score for Google Search and theDisplay Network are calculated separately.
Myth #3: Ads must show in high positions to get high Quality Scores.Google is gracious enough to account for the positions that your ad shows in.More important than your CTR is your CTR compared to other advertiserswhen their ad shows in the same position on the page.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYRemember that Quality Score is about having the best possible CTR. Focuson this above all else.
Add the Quality Score column to your AdWords account report.Start by rescuing the high impression keywords with scores of 4 orless.
Focus on improving your CTR first.Regularly review your Search Query Report to find irrelevantimpressions, and consider adding negative keywords to yourindividual ad groups or even across your entire campaign.
Regularly review your Quality Scores, and be quick to act on lowscores of 4 or less.
TopAdvert.net
D
Chapter 22
Google’s Search Partner NetworkGold Mine or Land Mine?
id you know that your search ads by default show in two very differentplaces?
Google Search (google.com, google.co.uk, google.com.au, etc.)
Google’s Search Partner Network, (eBay.com, Ask.com,Gumtree.com, other Google properties such as Maps and Finance andmany, many others).
Let’s be frank. The Search Partner Network is a less effective place to showyour ads than Google’s regular search page most of the time. But unless youspecifically turn it off, your ads are going to be seen there whether you askedfor it or not.
Here’s the dilemma:The name “Search Partner Network” seems to suggest that your ads will
show on partner sites that are essentially search engines like Google. Forinstance, Ask.com (formerly AskJeeves.com) is a key member of theNetwork, and your ads may be shown when search queries there match thekeywords you’re bidding on.
This is good business for Ask.com. They can monetize their trafficwithout having to create their own PPC program. It’s also good business forGoogle, who extends their reach in exchange for shared click revenue.
TopAdvert.net
However, despite the name, not every site on the network is a typicalsearch engine. You might be familiar with the AdSense Network—it’s whatthe Google Display Network is called from the publishers’ side. Internally atGoogle, the Search Partner Network is known as AdSense for Search (AFS).This gives you a clue as to the size of the network.
AFS includes sites such as eBay and Gumtree.com. Visitors to these sitescan perform searches, but the search results pages look very different fromGoogle’s. As a result, the placement and appearance of your ads there canvary dramatically.
On sites like these (and dozens of others), your ads perform far more likeads on the Google Display Network (GDN) than the Google Search pagesyou’re accustomed to.
So why don’t you just create a separate campaign for the Search PartnerNetwork, as you do with the GDN, and use different ads, different bids, andso on?
Because Google doesn’t allow it.There’s no way to create custom campaigns exclusively for AFS. You
have two choices: leave your regular Search ads running on AFS, or turnAFS off altogether.
In our experience, ads on AFS usually perform on par with regularGoogle Search results. Occasionally, they underperform.
If you’re a new AdWords user, go into your search campaign’s Settingsand next to “Networks” uncheck the “Include Google search partners” box.
However, if you’ve been running AdWords campaigns for a while, it maybe worth your time to dig a bit deeper. The next section explains a methodthat will let you create a campaign that’s almost 100 percent AFS-only.
TopAdvert.net
HOW TO CHISEL YOUR WAY IN TO THE SEARCHPARTNER NETWORKThis is a bit advanced. Are you ready?
Your first job is to look over your stats and decide if an AFS-onlycampaign is going to be a profitable exercise for you. Go to the Campaignscreen of your AdWords account, click on the “Segment” icon, and select“Network (with search partners).” This will segment the results for each ofyour campaigns into three lines: Google Search, AFS, and GDN:
TopAdvert.net
If the AFS results are considerably worse than your Google Searchresults, there’s no shame in simply turning it off and being done with it.
But if you sense there’s profit to be squeezed out of the AFS, here’s whatto do:
1. Review your search query report and look for search phrases thatsuggest AFS. When your ad is served on an AFS site that isn’t atypical search engine, Google doesn’t keep any record of the searchquery typed in by the user. Instead, they record text that identifies thecontent on the page, generally by showing the content of the H1 tag(i.e., the page’s main headline). Phrases like these will jump out atyou when you’re reviewing your Search Query Report becausethey’re unusually long and contain repeating keywords. If youdownload your Search Query Report into Excel, you can add anadditional column that tells you whether the search query was from aregular Google search or from a search partner site. To do this, justadd the segment “Network (with search partners).”
You can test whether a suspicious-looking phrase is from theAFS. Copy and paste the search query into Google.com and take alook at the first search result. If it’s an ecommerce site of somedescription and the page contains AdWords-style PPC ads, then it’svery likely you’ve found an AFS page that was showing your ads.
TopAdvert.net
For example, if you see this in your Search Query Report:
purax pure pads antiperspirant 30pcs adhesive underarmpads
you can copy and paste this into Google’s search window and see thefirst page result that shows up.
Google never publishes their list of AFS partners, but this methodis a foolproof way of finding out which sites are included.
2. Go into your main campaign, and add your AFS-specific searchphrase as a negative exact match. For example, turn this phrase into anegative exact match using square brackets and a minus sign:
–[purax pure pads antiperspirant 30pcs adhesive underarmpads]
This will exclude any of your ads from your main campaign fromshowing any further on this page. (It will also exclude your ad ifsomeone manually types this search into Google, though that’sunlikely given the obscure nature of the phrase.)
3. Create a new campaign for your AFS ads, and start a new ad groupcontaining this search term—and only this search term—as an exactmatch keyword. Every time someone visits the corresponding page onthe AFS site, in Google’s eyes this ad group will be a perfect match.You’re now free to tailor your ad to this page and adjust yourmaximum bid to better fit the results you’re getting.
You may also find it useful to name the ad group after the site thatyou’re targeting, along with the search phrase. So in this example,your ad group would be called “Amazon.com—purax pure padsantiperspirant 30pcs adhesive underarm pads.” This makes it easier tokeep track of what each ad group is attempting to achieve.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYFor most beginners, the best advice is to turn off AFS in your campaignsettings. However:
TopAdvert.net
If you have an established AdWords account, you can segment yoursearch query data to see how your ads are performing on the AFS.
If you’re feeling bold, review your search query report to locate sitesfrom within the AFS and set up a campaign that specifically targetsthem.
If you have a good relationship with a Google representative, there isan internal report you can request that tells you the main searchpartner sites your ads are showing on. In some situations, you can askGoogle to exclude your ads from certain sites, but this option isusually available only to larger advertisers.
TopAdvert.net
O
Chapter 23
Impression ShareGet More of the Right Eyeballs to See
Your Offer
nce you bid on a keyword, your ad will automatically be shown everytime somebody makes a related search, right?
Your ad may sometimes be in a low position on the page, but it’ll always bethere somewhere, right?
Wrong.
Google almost never shows any advertiser’s ads 100 percent of the time for agiven keyword. There are several reasons for this; the most important beingthat Google wants to test other advertisers’ ads to see how they perform. Plus,Google makes more money showing 20 ads 50 percent of the time thanshowing seven ads 100 percent of the time.
Google gets to control whose ads they show and how often. Thepercentage of the time they choose to show your ads for any given keywordis called impression share (IS), also known as coverage.
You can increase your impression share and ensure that more people seeyour ads more often. Google provides reporting data that shows your preciseimpression share and even provides hints at what you may need to do toimprove it.
TopAdvert.net
Imagine you have a profitable ad group, and you discover that yourimpression share is only 20 to 30 percent. With a few key fixes, your adscould be seen three to five times as often as they are, and your profit wouldmultiply by a similar factor. There’s a huge opportunity to increase yourbottom line, simply by improving this number.
HOW TO FIND YOUR IMPRESSION SHARENUMBERSTo turn on this particular metric inside your AdWords account, be sureyou’re in “Campaigns.” On the far right underneath the graph is an icon withthree vertical bars called “Columns.” Click it and select “CompetitiveMetrics” and add the following three columns to your stats: “SearchImpression Share,” “Search lost IS (budget),” and “Search lost IS (rank).”
You can view this data at the campaign, ad group, and keyword level.However, “Impression Share lost due to budget” only shows at the campaignlevel, so we suggest starting there.
TopAdvert.net
GDN Makes Impression Share a Challenge
Impression share can be viewed for Search Networkcampaigns and Google Display Network campaigns. Thischapter focuses on Search Network campaigns—the sheer sizeof the GDN makes it almost impossible to get anywhere near100 percent. You would need an unlimited budget, and perfectQuality Score, and even then you still wouldn’t be able to getthe full possible share.
Your impression share number will be a percentage that indicates howclose you are to being seen 100 percent of the time. So if your impressionshare is 50 percent, this means that you’re only being seen half of the timeyou could be. In this case, if you’re receiving 1,000 impressions a day on aparticular keyword, a 50 percent score means there are up to 1,000 additionalimpressions available to you on any given day—provided you can make theright improvements to your campaign.
“Impression Share lost due to budget” is simple to understand and fix.Let’s say your daily budget is $10 but there are actually $100 worth of clicksavailable out there every day. Your impression share in this case will neverexceed 10 percent, and the reports will probably tell you that your impressionshare lost due to budget is 90 percent.
“Impression share lost due to rank” is a bit more complex and involves anumber of elements we’ll look at more closely in a moment. In short, ifGoogle doesn’t feel that your campaigns are of a high enough quality, they’lllimit your impression share even further.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR IMPRESSION SHAREImpression share is a fantastically simple way of seeing how often your adsare showing, but it’s also a quick measure of how Google perceives thequality of your campaign and the potential that exists to increase your profits.
TopAdvert.net
There are two reasons why Google might limit your impressions (apartfrom the need to test the inventory of other advertisers):
1. Your daily budget is too low. This is simple to diagnose and fix. It’spossible to double or even triple the impressions on a profitableaccount simply by increasing the daily budget, even raising itsignificantly above your current spend. With this, you naturally needto exercise some caution. How profitable are your campaigns? Whatcan your marketing budget sustain? Answer those questions, and youcan raise your budget and impression share accordingly.
2. Your Ad Rank is too low. You can improve this by giving attention tothree things:
Ad Extensions. If you’re not using them, then jump right in and trysome sitelinks, callout extensions, and call extensions.
Quality Score. Google looks first at whatever campaign is runningthe highest volume. If the quality of the ads and keywords there ispoor, your impression share will suffer. If you’re showing aQuality Score of five or below, work on improving it. (SeeChapter 21 on Quality Score.)
Maximum Bid. If you need to bump this up to improve your AdRank, do so incrementally. Review your max bid every day ifneed be, and don’t raise it more than you can afford or sustain. It’sbetter to have a low impression share in a profitable campaignthan to have a high impression share and be losing money!
What Is Exact Match Impression Share?
Google can give you an additional metric called “Exact MatchImpression Share.” It’s Google’s prediction of what yourimpression share would be if every keyword in your campaignwere set to exact match.
TopAdvert.net
When you see this number, don’t make the mistake ofassuming you can fix a low impression share by switching yourentire campaign to exact match keywords.
If impression share is new to you, ignore this number for now.If you’re an experienced AdWords user and your exact matchimpression share is below 50 percent, compare your searchquery report with your keyword list. See if you have too manybroad match keywords or possibly not enough negativekeywords.
YOU CAN SEE YOUR COMPETITORS’IMPRESSION SHARE, TOOYou can spy on your competitors using third-party software applications, butyou can also do it within your own AdWords account. You can see yourcompetitors’ impression share for individual keywords or even entire groupsof keywords.
There’s a cool feature called “Auction Insights,” which you’ll find viaKeywords on the main menu. Pick out a relatively high-volume keyword thatyou want to research, check the box next to it, and then choose “AuctionInsights.”
TopAdvert.net
This will load a report that shows your impression share for thosekeywords, as well as that of a few of your competitors.
You can also run this report at the Ad Group or campaign level, again bychoosing your target keywords, and then selecting “Auction Insights.”
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYImpression share is one of the fastest ways to reveal untapped profit potentialin your AdWords campaigns. Tweak your ad extensions and Quality Score
TopAdvert.net
first before attempting to increase your daily budget or maximum bids.
Click the “Columns” drop-down menu and turn on data for“Impression Share,” “Impression Share lost due to budget,” and“Impression share lost due to rank.”
Consider whether you need to improve your Quality Score.Consider carefully if increasing your daily budget and/or yourmaximum bids could be a profitable way to improve your impressionshare.
Activate ad extensions if you haven’t already done so.Collect additional useful intelligence on your competitors bygenerating an Auction Insights Report.
Uncle Claude Sez
Don’t get distribution by methods too expensive or by slow, old-fashioned methods. The loss of time may cost you enormously in sales,and it may enable energetic rivals to get ahead of you.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 24
Keep Your Campaigns Purring Like aKitten
The $1,000-per-Hour Job Most PeopleDon’t Show Up For
n this chapter, we’re going to show you three crucial checks you can doregularly that ensure your PPC campaigns remain healthy. Along with
that, you’ll learn various methods for scaling up your already profitablecampaigns and nine steps for auditing and streamlining an establishedcampaign.
I once had a client who, in three and a half years, had tested a grand total ofsix ads in his number-one ad group. He’d bought 92,000 clicks, spent over$100,000, and the campaigns were profitable.
“Dude,” I said, “You are leaving an astonishing amount of money on thetable,” I explained, “For every 100 clicks that comes through, you have thepotential to test one pair of ads and declare a winner—at least for CTR, if notfor conversion. During the last three years, you could have tested hundreds oreven thousands of ads and you’d be getting twice the traffic for one-third themoney!”
He began routinely testing ads, and sure enough, his CTR skyrocketed by400 percent and his CPC dropped by two-thirds.
TopAdvert.net
Months later he was getting eight times the traffic for about half the costper conversion. Simply by making a habit of kaizen: continuous improvement.This alone can catapult an ordinary player to THE alpha dog in manymarkets.
One of the great advantages Google AdWords has over most otheradvertising channels is: it runs continuously. Yes, it’s a lot of work to set up,but once it’s in place it hums along for months, even years. I’ve had adcampaigns run for over two years with an absolute minimum of attention,bringing leads and sales 24/7/365. Which is just fabulous.
But ironically, that’s where most people go wrong. The typical Googleadvertiser logs in to his or her account only once every month or two. If youhave a plan and structure for regularly reviewing and improving yourcampaigns, your costs will likely get cut in half, your traffic will double, yourability to get leads in sales will double or even quadruple, and you’ll be muchless vulnerable to competition.
Running “real-world” marketing campaigns in television, radio, or printcan be torture.
A team of hard-working professionals can slave away for months,sweating over the minutiae of a carefully crafted television commercial ordirect-mail campaign, only to realize a few weeks after launch thatconversions are barely above zero.
An executive can invest tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars andwatch a costly campaign go flat. Then he’s faced with a decision: give itmore time in the hopes that it’ll turn a corner for the better, or ditch theproject entirely and try to go find more money to restart from scratch?
Thankfully, PPC doesn’t have to be anything like that.Sure, compared to the “set it and forget it” nature of Yellow Pages ads
and magazine inserts, Google AdWords requires you to be far more hands-on. That’s a turnoff for some. But the smartest marketers recognize that thisgives you a huge advantage. PPC by its very nature is designed to let youcorrect mistakes and scale up successful campaigns quickly.
A good AdWords account requires ongoing management. That’s not acurse and it’s not a burden. It’s a gift, a golden opportunity to keep testing,measuring, and improving results in real time.
In this chapter, we’re going to look at the proper way to monitor yourGoogle AdWords campaigns, where to focus your attention, and how to turn
TopAdvert.net
failure into success.Mike Rhodes’ company WebSavvy (www.websavvy.com.au) does
campaign management and Google AdWords audits from Down Under, fulltime. Let’s take a look at the checklist that Mike follows with his WebSavvyteam when reviewing a client’s account.
ONGOING MANAGEMENT: CHECKSHow often do you review your AdWords campaigns and how much time doyou spend on each step? That depends on the level of effort you’re willing tocommit. Ideally you’ll want to perform these steps once per month. If yourschedule lets you do this more frequently, even better.
WebSavvy breaks down their ongoing management into three phases:checks, optimizing, and expansion.
Imagine a guy who regularly pays for expensive engine tune-ups butnever thinks to check and top off his windshield washer fluid. Too manybusiness owners treat their AdWords accounts the same way. They don’tcheck on the simple, basic stuff often enough.
That’s why the “checks” phase comes first. This part of managingaccounts is relatively easy to carry out and is essential if the rest of yourAdWords work is to be effective.
There are three things you want to measure in this step. Each of them ismission critical.
Check Your Conversion TrackingThis is not the first on the list by accident. The first step to any success in anybusiness system is deciding what measurement is going to tell you that yourbusiness is, in fact, running like it should.
How to Spot Conversion-Tracking Bugs Early
The most common way conversion tracking fails is when a
TopAdvert.net
well-meaning web developer tweaks something on your siteand unintentionally messes up the process. Sometimes, he’llmake a change on a page and accidentally delete the trackingcode. He might alter the URL of one of the pages, and aseemingly innocuous one-character difference is enough togrind conversion tracking to a halt.
Don’t yell at your developers. They have a tough job. But besure to vet their work and check your tracking processes on aregular basis.
Setting up your conversion tracking is simple, but it’s also easy for thingsto break down. If you’re using code on your key pages to measureconversions, check regularly to be sure the code is still present and installedcorrectly.
Jon Correll of Conversion Voodoo (www.conversionvoodoo.com), aconversion optimization company, says that he has never seen a companythat didn’t have broken forms, broken conversion tracking, or some kind ofother major defect that nobody had caught.
Also, check the conversion process itself to ensure that no glitches havecropped up. Working tracking code on your “thank-you” page is pointless ifthe lead-capture form itself is broken. Make sure these pieces of your funnelare installed and functioning.
Check Your Campaign SettingsThe settings inside your Google AdWords account aren’t likely to changewithout your noticing. But don’t take this for granted, especially if you’re notthe only person administrating your campaign. Keep a written record of yoursettings, and occasionally check them to be sure nothing has been moved,adjusted, paused, or unintentionally reset.
Check Your Landing Pages
TopAdvert.net
Start by looking for obvious glitches such as broken formatting or dead links.Then, take a high-level view and ask whether you’re matching the rightlanding page to the right ad copy. Does what you promise in the ad getdelivered in the landing page? Is the connection between the two intuitiveand obvious to the visitor? Is there a better landing page you could be using?Is it time to consider building a new one that gives your visitors a betterexperience?
ONGOING MANAGEMENT: OPTIMIZING“Outliers” is a term made popular by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: TheStory of Success. It refers to fringe elements that in some way behavedifferently than everything else. In Gladwell’s case, he was referring toexceptional people. You can have “outliers” in AdWords, too: campaigns, adgroups, keywords, ads, or placements that perform significantly better—orsignificantly worse—than everything else.
You could spend your time optimizing every last element of your PPCcampaigns, but that’s not 80/20. Go for your outliers first.
The goal is simple: increase the good outliers, and decrease or fix the badones. If you have a particularly high-performing keyword, for instance, youmight want to raise the bid and get more impressions, clicks, andconversions. If you have a poorly performing keyword, on the other hand, trylowering the bid or even removing it from the campaign altogether.
Before you reach for the “nuke” button, however, ask whether you canimprove the bad keyword by writing a better ad or building a better landingpage for it. Sometimes your worst player can turn into your star player.
How long do you work on a troublesome keyword or ad group beforenixing it? That comes down to your patience, your tolerance for risk, andyour budget. If you have a large account with hundreds of ad groups, you canafford to be more aggressive with poor performers.
Either way, don’t burn hours of time over a bad keyword, especially ifyou’ve got bigger and more profitable ad groups that you could be optimizingfor better gains. Pause a questionable keyword, and come back to it at afuture date if you need to.
The audit section later in this chapter helps you create a plan for regularlyoptimizing your campaigns.
TopAdvert.net
ONGOING MANAGEMENT: EXPANSIONOnce your AdWords account is well-optimized, think expansion: moreimpressions, more clicks, and more conversions. With PPC, you can neverhave too much of a good thing.
There are a number of different ways you can you can expand an account.
Richer, Thicker Search CampaignsStart with new keywords. The search query report is a goldmine forthis information. (To access this, look under the Dimensions tab andin the “View” drop-down box select “Search Terms.”) This showsyou the actual search terms people typed in that Google chose to showyour ad for. Look for common phrases that aren’t yet in any of yourad groups. Add them in.
One useful thing you’ll find in the Opportunities tab is Google’s list ofadditional keyword suggestions. This section is useful for finding newideas, but beware: don’t be too quickly sucked into Google’sinsistence that the best thing you can do is increase your maximumbids. There’s a time and place to raise bids. Do not do it in kneejerkresponse to Google’s pestering.
Pay regular visits to Google’s Keyword Planner. We also recommendthird-party applications like SpyFu, SEMrush, and WordStream. Godigging there on a regular basis to find new keyword ideas.
Try aiming for the top positions. When your ad moves to the top of thepage above the organic results, the positive difference in CTR ismassive. Use your “Top vs. Other” report to see this spelled out inhard numbers.
TopAdvert.net
Do Higher Positions Boost Your Quality Score?
Getting your ad into the top three positions will virtuallyalways give you a huge bump in CTR. However, that doesn’tnecessarily translate into a huge bump in Quality Score.Remember, Google is grading you on the curve. Google knowsbeing in prime positions will improve CTR for even poorlywritten ads, so they apply something called “normalization.”They will only kick up your Quality Score if you’re performingbetter on average than other ads do in a given position.
TopAdvert.net
Display Campaigns with Vibrant Ads That ShowEverywhere
Never assume that the performance of your display campaign ads hashit its ceiling. Keep testing new ads with fresh ideas and try to beatyour best CTR. This rule holds especially true for image ads. You canoften get a really quick win just by testing a vibrant new image or anew headline.
If you’re using a managed placement campaign, always be lookingaround for new sites where you can feature ads. If you’re usingcontextual targeting, always be looking for new keywords or topicsyou can introduce that will expand the range of sites where your adscan show.
Experiment with different targeting methods. If you’re only usingmanaged placements, give contextual targeting a try, and vice versa.And if you’re not using remarketing, this should be at the top of youridea list.
HOW TO AUDIT AND DIAGNOSE PROBLEMSQUICKLYIf you’ve been running AdWords campaigns for any length of time, it’s agood idea to perform a full audit. WebSavvy audits hundreds of clientaccounts each year, and here are the main steps they follow. Using theseaudits is an excellent way to quickly identify and address problems and issuesthat have crept in unnoticed.
1. Structure Your Account Just RightStart by getting a bird’s-eye view of your Google AdWords account.Remember the 80/20 rule? Look for the 20 percent of problems that arecausing 80 percent of your slowdown or cash loss and which will give you 80percent of your potential improvement once you fix them.
Here are some clues to where some of your biggest problems might behiding:
TopAdvert.net
Number of ad groups. The key to PPC success is matching the rightads with the right people. If a campaign only contains one ad group,then every one of your potential prospects is seeing the same genericpair of ads from you regardless of what keyword they searched on.We know with near-100 percent certainty that that’s going to earn yousome terrible CTRs. In an earlier chapter, we shared an example of adoctor bidding on “chiropractor,” “back pain,” and “sciatica.” Each ofthese themes needs an ad group of its own, with custom ads written tomatch the keyword. Peel and stick those keywords and give them theexact ads and campaign settings they need for maximumperformance.
Number of keywords per ad group. Now, dig a little deeper and seehow many keywords you have in each group. Ideally, you want to seeno more than 20 keywords per group. If you’ve exceeded this amount,create new ad groups and split your keywords into more tightlyfocused sets. We typically build ad groups with just a single keyword(known as SKAGs.)
Number of ads per ad group. If most or all of your ad groups onlycontain one ad, you’re making a big mistake. You’re missing valuableopportunities to test and find new, better-performing ads. Just two orthree ads per group is plenty for the vast majority of campaigns.
2. Find the Right Devices to Show OnIn 2016, Google reintroduced the ability to bid separately on desktops,tablets, and mobiles. If your impressions, clicks, and conversions aresubstantially higher or lower for a particular device, you may want to checkthe mobile or tablet versions of your site. Updating for mobile and tabletusers could give you a boost in conversions. But before you invest time inthat, look over your results, and do the math. If you want to prevent your adsfrom showing on a particular device, see Chapter 12 on bid modifiers. At thecampaign level, you can set up a bid modifier of –100 percent to excludeyour ads from showing on that particular device category. (For example, tocompletely turn your ads off on tablets, set a bid adjustment of –100 percentfor tablet.)
TopAdvert.net
3. Other Bid AdjustmentsThere are a number of other bid changes you can make in your account.Remember, the game here is to look for outliers. Increase the bid on entitiesthat are working well and decrease the bid on those that aren’t.
Not only can you use ad scheduling to turn your ads off at certain times ofthe day or night, you can use bid adjustments to increase or decrease yourbids for certain periods of the day. Use the Time of Day and Day of Weekreports, located under the Dimensions tab, to check your performance andchange bids accordingly.
Use the geography and user locations reports (also under the Dimensionstab) to see how your ads perform in different countries, regions, or evencities.
Bid for different audiences. This has been possible on the DisplayNetwork for several years, but now Google has added the ability to biddifferently for search ads by gender and for different ages. This is known asDemographic Bids for Search Ads (DFSA). See Chapter 26 on RemarketingLists for Search Ads (RLSA) about how to combine the power ofremarketing with your search ads.
Always check your data and adjust your bids accordingly.
4. Impression ShareStarting at the campaign level, turn on three additional columns to checkimpression share data. You will want to look at impression share, impressionshare lost due to rank, and impression share lost due to budget. See Chapter23 on Impression Share for more details about this.
5. Know Your Best NetworksYou should keep your Search Network and Google Display Networkcampaigns separate, but targeting Google’s search partners is limited to “on”or “off.” Check your search partner network numbers. If they’re poor, it maybe wise to opt out of the Search Partners Network completely. If you are ane-commerce store, be sure you’re running Google Shopping ads. (SeeChapter 30.)
TopAdvert.net
6. Show in Positions on the Page That Convert ProfitablyHint: Unless you’re already a master of ad copy, nothing will boost yourCTR faster than improving your ad position, especially when you make thejump to the premium position at the top of the page.
This is why the “average position” metric in your campaign reports canbe incredibly helpful. The “Top vs. Other” report we showed you earlier willgive you this data.
Check to see how often your ads are at the top of the page versus otherpositions. There’s no perfect place for everyone; you’ll need to test to seewhich positions give you the best ROI. But the premium listings at the topwill give you a much higher CTR—up to 15 times that of the other places onthe page.
If you’re in position one or two, odds are you’re getting the maximumpotential traffic. If you’re ranking lower, somewhere “below the fold” wheresearchers have to scroll in order to see you, then you’ve got room forimprovement.
How do you push your ad up one or two places? Answer: Bid more. If itmeans the difference between you being in the top four or not, it’s almostalways a profitable move.
Note: Your ranking on the page is a function of your bid price and yourQuality Score. That means that if you improve your CTR by testing new ads,your Quality Score goes up. If you tweak your landing page to make it morerelevant, your Quality Score goes up. And when your QS goes up, Googlewill rank you higher on the page (and give you more impressions) withoutyou having to bid more per click.
Regardless, don’t expect to bat 1,000. Placing in the top four spots 100percent of the time for any keyword is nearly impossible unless it’s a brandkeyword. Aim for a minimum of 50 percent, and consider anything around 80percent to be a job well done.
7. KeywordsWith your keywords, there are two common pitfalls to look out for:
1. Too many broad matches, or
TopAdvert.net
2. Too many exact matches.
Rely too heavily on broad match keywords, and you’ll end up with hugenumbers of irrelevant impressions. Fill your ad groups with exact matchkeywords only, and you’ll miss out on huge volumes of traffic.
Take a careful look through your Search Query Report. It will tell youwhich matching options are being associated with your ads most often, andhow successful each one is.
Take a look at the Quality Score distribution in your account. Payparticular attention to your highest-impression keywords. A Quality Score ofa four or lower is a warning sign, so use this as an opportunity to dig in anddiagnose potential causes. (See Chapter 21 on Quality Score.)
8. Test to Find Winning Ad CopyFind an ad group that has at least two ads and ask: how different are the adsfrom each other?
Same headline? Same offer? Same body copy? Same hook? Just a worddifferent here, maybe a comma there?
Our friend David Bullock shares this ad copy maxim:First test forests, then test trees, then test branches, then test leaves.If you’ve only been running the ads in a particular ad group for a few
months or less, you want to be testing “forests,” not minor tweaks. You wantto see different headlines, different offers, and even different paths.
For a campaign that’s been around for years, small tweaks make moresense. Ensure all relevant ad extensions are being shown. Occasionally checkyour metrics to see if new extensions are needed. (See Chapter 13 for moreon ad extensions.)
9. Landing Pages That ConvertCompare each ad to the landing page it directs to. Are the two consistent? Isthe landing page obviously about the keyword? If in the ad you promisedinformation or an opportunity to take action or get a free gift, is that clearlyand obviously available on the landing page? Is there a clear call to action? If
TopAdvert.net
not, your conversions will suffer.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYThankfully, PPC is not a one-shot deal. Start with a good foundation and thenput a solid ongoing campaign management schedule in place so you cancontinually revise and improve your results and, ultimately, your bottom line.
Schedule time for routine campaign management, at least once permonth—weekly if at all possible. (That simple, weekly AdWordsaccount checkup, which includes testing a few new ads and improvingconversions, can earn you as much as $1,000 per hour. On a goodday, more. No joke. It is one of the highest-paid 15- to 30-minuteactivities you can do.)
Check your conversion tracking, campaign settings, and landing pagesfor obvious mistakes and screw-ups.
Focus more time, money, and effort on keywords and ad groups thatare performing well. Find the especially bad ones and fix them, ormore likely nix them for good.
Expand your campaigns through keyword research, bid increases, andnew targeting methods.
Run an audit. Go through established, long-running campaigns andcheck their structure, the devices and networks they target, and howwell each is performing. See what your average ad positions are andhow your different match types are performing.
Test new ad copy and revisit your landing pages to ensure they echoyour ads perfectly.
TopAdvert.net
S
Chapter 25
Creating Your Own Remarketing Grid
ometimes, solving a knotty conceptual problem can be solved with asimple sheet of paper, a pencil, and a matrix you draw up by hand.
WHAT IS A REMARKETING GRID?Mike Rhodes’s Remarketing Grid is a terrific way to visualize your variouscampaigns and audiences you want to target with your remarketing. It’s a toolyou can create yourself that makes building your own campaigns far easier.
This chapter is just a short overview of the grid, but we highly recommendreading Mike’s article in its entirety for a full explanation:www.digitalmarketer.com/remarketing-grid.
WHY USE IT?The key to making any remarketing (RM) campaign effective is in knowinghow to segment your visitors.
By default, when you set up RM in AdWords, you target all the visitorsthat came to your site in the last 30 days. But you don’t want to treat all yourvisitors equally. So there are two essential ways to segment them: (1) theirlevel of interest and (2) the amount of time they’ve spent on your site.
By working out all the various interest levels and time frames that youwant to target, you can craft a simple visual grid where every squarerepresents a potential group of people to target.
TopAdvert.net
The First Way to Segment: InterestThere’s a big difference between the people who came to your site andbought and those who showed up, looked around for a few seconds, and left.And there’s a whole range of interest levels in between.
Here’s an example of how we might break down levels of interest for anecommerce site:
1. Least interested. Those who show up on a site but leave after a fewseconds. If you can avoid showing RM ads to these people, yourresults will improve. RM ads would just annoy them at this point.
2. Viewed a product. People who look at a specific product item on yourecommerce site.
3. Added product to cart. These people are more interested and morelikely to buy.
4. Made it as far as checkout. These folks have shown even moreinterest but still haven’t bought yet.
5. Buyers. Success! And you can target and RM to these visitors. (Thisis more of an advanced strategy.)
Most of the time, you’ll just want to target people who have at leastshown a level of interest but have not yet made a purchase. In the ecommerceexample above, that would include anyone in groups 2 through 4.
The Second Way to Segment: TimeA visitor who was on your site earlier today is a 100 times better of aprospect than someone who visited six months ago and hasn’t been backsince. So, it’s important to know how long it’s been since a person was onyour site. The more recent the visit, the more likely he or she is to buy.
When we talk about recency, think in terms of hours and days since theyvisited, rather than weeks or months, unless what you sell is expensive andhas a very long sales cycle.
That’s why you segment out your remarketing lists. You can spend moremoney on the people who were at your site most recently. You can showdifferent ads, with different offers, depending on how recent their visit was.
TopAdvert.net
HOW TO SET UP YOUR REMARKETING GRIDFull setup instructions are here: http://www.digitalmarketer.com/remarketing-grid. In short, you create a grid where every square potentially represents aseparate ad group. This is easier than the alternative method of building aseries of Custom Combinations. You can bid a different amount for each ofthe different targeting options described above. The article shows you how.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYCreate your own grid.Build out your remarketing campaigns, creating an ad group for eachsquare on your grid.
TopAdvert.net
F
Chapter 26
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads(RLSA)
The World’s Most Profitable Form ofTraffic . . . Now Available on Google
Search
or a few inexperienced marketers, creating remarketing ads that followyou around the internet comes off as blatant and ham-fisted. This same
concept applied to Google Search, however, can be elegant and very subtle.Most importantly, it’s highly profitable.
Remarketing has been a powerful feature on the Display Network for yearsnow. But perhaps you’ve thought to yourself—as we did for years—“If only Icould do this on Search!”
Now you can.
WHAT ARE REMARKETING LISTS FOR SEARCHADS?RLSA is a powerful tool for your search campaigns:
TopAdvert.net
Remarketing has always been about the Display Network; RLSA ishow you now apply this concept to Google Search.
The traffic you get from it can be profitable for you right out of thegate: if you want to show certain search ads only to people who havealready been to your website, you now have that option.
You can use all the user behavior data from your prospects’ previousvisits to your site and improve your search ads even further.
You can decide exactly who will see your ad and how much you bid foreach impression. There are two options to choose from: Observations andTargeting (advanced).
1. ObservationsWith this setting, you use a campaign you already have running—the same adgroups and ads and the same keywords. You just increase the bid for aparticular audience.
For example, let’s say you have a long-tail keyword in your campaignsuch as “buy 55 inch Panasonic TV.” This keyword doesn’t specify a makeor model number, but it’s far more targeted than just the single word “TV.” Itclearly represents a person who’s in the mood to buy.
If a person has visited your site and didn’t purchase from you, but he’sstill searching with this long-tail keyword, RLSA enables you to bid moreand show your ad to him again.
In principle, he’s worth more to you than the average click: he knowswho you are and is still eagerly searching. If he’s visited your site before andhe recognizes and likes you, he’s more likely to convert. It’s worth spendinga little more to get in front of him, rather than someone who is searching forthe same keyword for the first time but has never been to your site.
How to Set Up Observations:
Go to the “Audiences” tab in your interface.Choose a remarketing list and add it to your ad group (or campaign).Set a bid adjustment. This tells Google you want to bid a specifichigher percentage because you think this person is more likely to
TopAdvert.net
convert (e.g., if your original bid was $1, a 20 percent increase bumpsit up to $1.20).
If you’re new to RLSA, start with a conservative increase of just 5 to 25percent. If your numbers and results clearly justify this over time, try moreaggressive bids in the 50 to 200 percent range.
2. Targeting (Advanced)With this option, you show the ad to somebody only if he or she is already onyour remarketing list and searching for your keyword.
This is a good option for people searching for “top of funnel” keywords.For example, the single term “TV” is extremely broad and could mean lots ofthings to different people (e.g., the history of television; TV repairs; programlistings, etc.). Only a small percentage of those people are looking to buy aTV right now, and you normally wouldn’t bid on such a generic term.
But if someone has visited your site recently, they’re on your remarketinglist, and they’re still searching for “TV,” it may be worth running a test andshowing ads to them.
Here’s how you set up Targeting (advanced):
Create a new campaign to keep your data nice and clean.Set up new ad groups with the keywords you want to target.Add an Audience to each ad group (you can simplify things AND addthe audience to the entire campaign if you prefer).
Choose the “Targeting (advanced)” setting.
Other Uses for RLSA
You can combine RLSA with Dynamic Search Ad campaigns(see Chapter 27).
You can also use RLSA with Google Shopping. Just as with
TopAdvert.net
Google search, you can either layer RLSA over existing adgroups using the “Observations” option, or you can create anew campaign using the Targeting (advanced) option. Thisway you can show your Shopping ads only to people who aresearching for relevant products, who have already visited yourwebsite, and who are already on your remarketing list.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYTo get started, use the “Observations” setting and add your remarketing list toan existing ad group of your choice. Begin with just a small bid increase.
If you prefer the “Targeting (advanced)” option, you can set up brand-new campaigns and add remarketing lists to each ad group.
Use the data Google provides you to calculate the cost of showing adsto visitors not on your remarketing list. Compare it to visitors who areon your list in order to see what RLSA is saving you.
TopAdvert.net
Y
Chapter 27
Advanced Campaign TypesPolishing Your Competitive Edge
ou’re one degree closer to being completely impervious when yourcompetition is unable to reverse-engineer your marketing and sales
funnels.
In this chapter, we’ll share a couple of AdWords features that make it thatmuch harder for your competitors to know all the tools you’re wielding fromyour arsenal. They can give you that last 5 percent advantage, which may bejust the competitive edge you need.
Now that we’ve covered all the main campaigns in Search, Display, andShopping, let’s explore two advanced campaign types: Dynamic Search Adsand Call-Only campaigns.
If you’ve got everything else set up and running successfully, give thesetwo new campaign types a try. They’ll let you squeeze even more from yourAdWords account.
DYNAMIC SEARCH ADS (DSAS)Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are magical keys to reaching your customers.And the best part? Using them is easy once you master the setup.
TopAdvert.net
What Are DSAs?Google knows it’s hard to keep your campaigns perfectly in sync with yourwebsite. If you have an ecommerce site with thousands of products changingregularly, it’s a chore to be constantly creating new keywords, new adgroups, and new ads inside your AdWords account. DSAs were created to fillthis gap. They let you show ads to excellent prospects who might besearching for items you sell on your site even if you don’t have acorresponding keyword for them in your account.
Why Should You Set Up a DSA?As long as you set a low CPC, dynamic search ads typically have a decentCPA and provide additional relevant traffic. They’re also great for research asyou get to uncover new search terms that people are using to find your site.(You can use this intelligence after the fact to add new keywords to youraccount.)
Let’s say you’ve just started selling wrought-iron fire pits on yourecommerce site but you don’t have the keywords for them yet in yourAdWords account. A new prospect—we’ll call her Kim—is currently onlinesearching for this by name. She types it in verbatim: “wrought iron fire pits.”If you have a DSA campaign set up, you’re in luck: Google instantlyrecognizes that you sell these but don’t yet have keywords for the purpose.Thankfully, you don’t miss a beat with Kim; Google shows her yourDynamic ad, and she clicks, comes to your website, and makes a purchase.
How Do They Work?It starts with Google regularly scanning your website and keeping an index ofall its pages. When you are starting out, you can choose to point Google toyour entire site—we recommend this for your first DSA campaign—althoughlater on you can target specific categories within your site. (Advanced userscan even point to specific page URLs, titles, or content.)
You can exclude certain pages of your site from being included inGoogle’s index. This would include FAQs, privacy policies, and case studies,which can contain useful sales content but which don’t contribute directly to
TopAdvert.net
the products listings themselves and might create keyword confusion.Google knows what keywords are in your account and, more importantly,
what keywords are not there. This means they can make accurate judgmentsabout when to step in and show your DSA ads.
When setting up DSAs, Google creates the headline, and you write thedescription. They choose the final URL, and you set the bid.
Note: Sometimes the standard headline character limit doesn’t apply toDSAs. Since Google writes DSA headlines automatically, from time to time,they’ll break their own rules on character limits.
How to Set Up a DSACreate a new campaign. One of the options you’ll see is to create aDSA campaign. We suggest not using that as it would limit youroptions further along. Instead, create a new Search campaign with “allfeatures.” Your plan will be to only use DSAs inside that campaign.
You’ll need at least one ad group to hold your DSAs, and one istypically enough if you’re just starting out.
You still want to be split-testing even though Google chooses yourheadline for you. So, create two different DSA ads with differentbody copy in each.
Choose the target. Start with the “all webpages” default. Save theadvanced targeting for later.
There are no positive keywords for you to use here. But you do wantto add in some negative keywords, just as you would with yournormal search campaigns.
RLSA often improves the performance of Dynamic Search Ads. (SeeChapter 26.)
Add in ad extensions just as you would for a regular campaign.
Ongoing Management of Your DSAReview your data. Keep an eye on the search queries Google chooses,particularly in the first few days. This lets you add any new negativekeywords that you don’t want your ads shown for. And it’s a good way to
TopAdvert.net
identify and add new keywords you hadn’t yet thought of for otherfunctioning campaigns. (You can add these new keywords as negatives inyour DSA campaign, which forces that keyword traffic over to newcampaigns in your account. Your DSA campaigns won’t be affected.)
CALL-ONLY CAMPAIGNSWhat Are Call-Only Campaigns?These allow you to create search ads where Google shows your phonenumber rather than a headline. As such, they only show on mobile devicescapable of making calls. A person clicks on your ad, and that starts theprocess of calling your business directly from their mobile, rather than takingthem to your site.
Why Use Call-Only?Call-only campaigns force people to call your phone number rather than visityour site. If generating more phone calls is high priority for your business,call-only campaigns are worth testing.
How to Set Up Call-Only Campaigns
TopAdvert.net
Setup is simple. You can create a new campaign from scratch or just copyyour existing search campaigns and change the ad type. Replace regular adswith call-only ads.
Tip: Google wants to see individual ad groups with a reasonable numberof impressions at the ad group level. So a small number of ad groups withmore keywords in each one—generating more impressions per ad group—will work better for call-only campaigns.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYSet up a DSA campaign with a low budget for testing.Create a single ad group, a single ad, and single “all webpages”targeting.
Create a copy of your best existing search campaign. Delete yourregular ads, and replace them with call-only ads.
Set a very low bid (20 percent of your average keyword bids), andstart testing.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 28
Google’s Display NetworkThe Greatest Testing Playground in
History
magine that a company named Generico Housing Insurance, Inc. wants tobuild an ad campaign to promote its new insurance coverage for egg
damage caused by bored teenagers. Which approach do you think will get thecompany more new signups?
1. HiPPO Selection. The graphic designer develops four ads with verydifferent visual styles and reveals them at the next board meeting. Thepresident of the company takes the role of the HiPPO (“Highest PaidPerson’s Opinion,” a term coined by Google Analytics expertAvinash Kaushik). The image in design #2 makes him laugh and thecolor scheme reminds him of the new curtains his wife just pickedout, so he chooses that one to run online, in print, and on TV.
2. Street Selection. The graphic designer develops four ads with verydifferent visual styles. A market researcher is paid a large sum ofmoney to go out on the street and ask people at random to rate theads, asking them which one they find most attractive, most likely tocreate trust, most likely to appeal to older people, and so on.
If you’re thinking both approaches seem a little shaky, you’re absolutelycorrect. It should scare you that a large proportion of businesses still develop
TopAdvert.net
their ad campaigns using these methods.Marketing becomes a lottery. If you fail, you blame it on the designer. If
you succeed, you conclude that HiPPOs or random disinterested strangersknow best how to choose a winning campaign.
It should be obvious why HiPPO selection is a bad idea. No singleindividual, no matter how experienced he or she is, can perfectly predict theperformance of an ad campaign. But the street selection approach is alsoflawed. It’s one thing to voice an opinion about how pretty an ad campaignlooks; it’s another thing entirely to actually be motivated to buy. Most folkson the street don’t know the difference.
There’s a third way. It’s inexpensive, easy to set up, and as impartial asyou’ll ever find.
We’re going to use the Google Display Network (GDN). We’ll use live,real-world market research on advertising styles, and then plan our onlinestrategy based on concrete numerical results.
THE POWER OF A BLIND TESTLet’s say the marketing department at Generico has decided to go with theGDN method to test its campaign. They create two display ads. The copy inboth is identical; only the images are different. Ad #1 shows a house beingegged by teenagers. Ad #2 shows a pretty home with a nicely dressed,attractive family standing out front. The call to action in both is to clickthrough to the website and request an insurance quote.
At first, Generico has no way of knowing which ad will generate morequotes. Doesn’t matter; Google will show the ads to a few thousand people,and within a week or two, there’s a clear winner. Generico now knows whichimage to use as it invests more advertising dollars in its website, GDN, printads, business cards, and even TV commercials.
This works because we’re measuring actual physical behavior in realtime—not just verbal opinions. People are clicking their mouse and fillingout forms . . . or failing to. When they see the Generico ad online, they haveno idea they’re participating in a split test. They’re simply responding basedon whether the ad triggers them to want insurance or not.
GDN is never a branding exercise, and it’s never opinion polling. It’sobserving your target market making live decisions and learning what excites
TopAdvert.net
their interest or leaves them cold.Don’t waste thousands of dollars creating huge portfolios of advertising
and marketing collateral. Spend just a few hundred dollars up front testingads and you’ll know which images, color schemes, headlines, and calls toaction give you the results you want.
“TEST THE FOREST” FIRSTOur colleague David Bullock has given us a great verbal rule of thumb fortesting ads and marketing campaigns:
First test forests, then test trees,then test branches, then test leaves.
Test the big difference-making stuff first. Go after finer points later. Howfar down you drill will depend on your patience for this kind of work and, ofcourse, your budget.
In this scenario, the “forest” is two things:
1. Your headline, hook, call to action, offer, or guarantee2. The overall aesthetic design of your ad: color schemes, styles, layout,
and tone; bold versus subtle, traditional versus modern, serious versuscomic, masculine versus feminine, young versus old, and everythingin between
Let’s say you plan to test images of people in your ads. Try different agesas well as both genders. Right off the bat, that gives you four variations: oldermen, older women, younger women, and younger men. Which one will yourtarget market respond to? After a few thousand impressions, you’ll know.
The one thing split testing teaches you above all else is that there is nopredicting what will and will not make a drastic difference.
There are so many different things you can test:
Image style: hi-res color photo, black-and-white classic, hand-drawnpicture, or even no image at all.
Text formatting: color, font, size, bold or italic.Dominant color: Colors have a huge impact on ad performance.
TopAdvert.net
Different colors and different levels of light or dark will evoke wildlydifferent moods. If you’re carefully targeting sites on GDN to showyour ads, think about what color schemes will make your ads standout on the page rather than blending into the background.
Call to action: Ideally, this should be prominent. Even better if it’s inthe form of a button. We’re trained to click on buttons. Your entire admay be clickable, but if you feature a boldly colored button, peoplewill click there more than any place else on your image.
The Power of the Right Call to Action
There are few elements of an ad more important than a call toaction. The more specific you are, the more likely you’ll getclicks. Phrases such as “Download Here” or “Go here to watchthe video” may seem obvious, but they work.
Related tip: Create a call-to-action button that’s a sharplydifferent color from the rest of your ad. For instance, if your adfeatures an image of a tent in the middle of a wooded area,don’t use a green button; use white, yellow, or even red.
WHICH TYPE OF AD SHOULD I START WITH?Google’s Display Network gives you a wide variety of ad sizes, but you needto stick to just one size until you’ve identified your winning ad style. It’ssimple math. If you create ten different styles of image ads—a good numberto start with—but you attempt to test each of these in eight possible imagesizes, you’ll end up creating 80 different ads. That’s unwieldy and a waste oftime.
The first size to test is 300 × 250 pixels. (This is officially called a“medium rectangle,” “med rec,” or “inline rectangle”). It’s one of the mostcommon sizes supported by sites on GDN, so you’ll be sure to get plenty of
TopAdvert.net
placement. Most importantly, in our experience it’s the size that draws thehighest CTR, which is the key factor at this stage.
For the rest of the chapter, we’ll focus on using image ads. This type ofad has existed in Google for years and in our opinion still gives the besttrade-off between performance and control. A couple of new types of adshave been introduced more recently: expanded text ads (the same formatyou’re familiar with from Search) and responsive image ads.
What Are Responsive Ads?
Responsive ads allow Google to automatically adjust the size,appearance, and format of your ad—in their words—“to fit justabout any available ad space.” This new format enables yourads to be shown on a far wider range of sites and devices, andin more places, than ever before. The ad also appears to bemore “native,” that is, it’s a better match to the page it appearson. You may get more clicks from this; however, early testinghas shown many of these clicks are of a lower quality. We,therefore, recommend with your first few Display Networkcampaigns that you stick to using static image ads, startingwith 300 × 250 pixels.
One disadvantage with responsive ads is that you have lesscontrol over where the ad is shown. Google does not provideyou with granular reporting on the various formats they’veused. Nor do they give you the option to bid differently fordifferent formats. Your ad might be displayed as a banner, anative ad, or a text ad, but you don’t have control over it.
To set up a responsive ad you will need to load six assets:
1. One large image: You can use stock photos fromGoogle AdWords, you can have the tool scan and pull
TopAdvert.net
images from your website, or you can upload yourown image. (Note that these must be cropped to 1.91:1ratio, typically 1200 × 628.)
2. Your business logo.
3. Two headline versions—a short one of up to 25characters and a long one of up to 90 characters.
4. A description line of up to 90 characters.
5. Your business name.
6. The final URL of where the ad will send the traffic.
Responsive ads are easier to create. Many advertisers make useof these purely because they’re now the default. But we highlyrecommend you make the extra effort and create your ownstatic image or text ads.
The leaderboard size (728 × 90) also gets good impressions. Clicks andconversions won’t be at quite the same level as the medium rectangle, butthis is often the next best size to go after.
Once you’ve tested those, try the large rectangle (336 × 280), wideskyscraper (160 × 600), half page (300 × 600), and billboard (970 × 250).
Tip: Plan on your best ad outperforming your worst ad by a factor ofthree.
As of this writing, Google supports many different images sizes.However, the 80/20 rule applies here. Most of the available sizes will getvery limited exposure on GDN sites. There’s little point in creating image adsfor every size unless you’re attempting to completely max out yourimpressions. Otherwise it’s a law of diminishing returns.
HOW TO CREATE GORGEOUS ADSOnce you’ve come up with the ideas for ten different ads, you’re ready tocreate the ads. Make them the same size (300 × 250) and use static images.
TopAdvert.net
Save animated images until after you’ve identified your best performingstatic image and style.
Assuming you’re not a hands-on graphic designer, you have three goodoptions:
1. Use Google’s Ad Gallery. Find it by going into an ad group within aDisplay Network enabled campaign and clicking the blue “+” button:
You can use any one of Google’s free preset templates and insertyour own images and text, or you can use Google’s auto-createfeature that automatically generates ads by searching your websiteand existing Search ads. (The results aren’t always the best looking,but the tool is free, quick, and easy.)
2. Find a budget designer. There’s a plethora of online services that willcreate image ads for you. We like www.20dollarbanners.com andhttp://minibannerszen.com/, where for $20 to $30 a piece, you canhave some nice custom designs crafted in a few days or even hours.Both of these websites have portfolio pages, which are worth perusing
TopAdvert.net
if you’re short on ideas.3. Hire a pro designer. Find the right professional freelance graphic
designer, one who takes time with the creative process and isn’tgrinding out dozens or hundreds of designs per day, and you can endup with some stunning and original images for your campaign.
Important tip: There’s a downside to this and, no, it isn’t price. (In mostcases, hiring pro designers isn’t substantially more expensive than finding abudget designer.) Most graphic designers don’t understand the testingconcepts we cover in this book. They’ll expect you to brief them on one stylethat they can recreate in a variety of formats. The notion of creating tencompletely different designs, all the same size, will baffle most designers.You need to either educate them or search until you find a designer amenableto this strategy.
We use the services of Laura Husmann at Banner Ad Queen(http://banneradqueen.com). We cannot recommend her highly enough. Herprices are good, her designs are outstanding, and she thoroughly understandsAdWords advertisers and the concept of testing. If you want top qualityimages—particularly if you’re an agency handling the campaigns of multipleclients—she should be your first choice.
HOW TO KEEP YOUR ADS IN GOOGLE’S GOODGRACESIf you’re hiring a pro designer who’s relatively new to GDN ads, send themto this section of the book and have them read it carefully.
Google has explicit rules on what is and isn’t allowed in image ads.Check every one of your ads against Google’s requirements before activatingyour campaign. Here are a few rules that GDN users most commonly fail toapply.
Technical SpecificationsStatic images must be in jpg, png, or gif format and be of a file size nogreater than 150 KB.
TopAdvert.net
Animated images must be an animated gif or the correct version ofFlash (swf), must run for no longer than 30 seconds (looping imagesare allowed, but must cease movement after 30 seconds), and be nomore than five frames per second (fps) for gifs and 20 fps for swf. Ineither case, 150 KB is still the maximum file size.
Content SpecificationsNo “trick-to-click” ads. The ad must look like an ad and clearlydifferentiate itself from the rest of the page on which it resides. If thead is designed to look like a system warning or error message, it willbe flagged and disabled.
The ad image must fill the entire image size and be correctly oriented.The ad image cannot be “tiled” or appear to be more than one image(for example, one image designed to look like three different textads).
As with all AdWords campaigns, the ad must be relevant to thelanding page it’s sending people to.
The image must be of a high quality without any fuzziness or blurredimages.
All text on the image must be legible.Animated images cannot use strobe or flashing lights.The image must be suitable for a family audience. Google takes a hardline on this one. Nothing even remotely borderline will be tolerated.
GDN LANDING PAGESGenerally speaking, you don’t want to send your display traffic straight to asignup form or product to be purchased. People who are clicking on displaynetwork ads are less ready to buy or hand over their personal information.They need to be given more useful, relevant, and valuable content toconsume. Treat it like a first date. Let them warm up to you, rather than youtrying to go straight for the sale.
It used to be that the prime goal of almost any smart site owner was tocapture a visitor’s email address on their first visit. That’s changing. Mostbusinesses are now happy to just cookie visitors and remarket to them
TopAdvert.net
instead. So, the funnel now follows this sequence:
1. Eye-catching display ad2. Webpage where you provide valuable content (without requiring
visitors to take any action)3. Remarketing ad where you bring them back to see additional content4. Offer where they can give you their email or make a purchase
So the point where you provide something of value and they give youtheir contact information is more likely to occur on the second or third date.
ADVANCED BIDDING ON THE DISPLAYNETWORKYou won’t be able to start off on day one with any kind of automatedbidding. You’ll need to set your bids manually until you have enough data tolet Google take over. Plus, you’re better off getting a feel for manual biddingfirst before handing the keys to somebody else.
Automated bidding will work better once you’ve accumulated good data,but proceed with caution. We’ve often found that results are worse during theinitial few weeks after switching to automatic bidding, but they improve withtime.
This tool works far better if you get at least 500 conversions per month,per campaign. If you’re getting fewer than 100 conversions per month, thenwe recommend you skip automatic bidding.
Google continues to change and improve the accuracy of their biddingalgorithms. Every day that goes by, automated bidding becomes a safer bet.
CUSTOMER MATCHIf you’ve advertised with Facebook, you may be aware of a feature calledWebsite Custom Audience (WCA). Google’s customer match feature wasintroduced as a way to compete with Facebook. It allows you to upload a listof email addresses and target people that Google recognizes from that list.You must upload a minimum of 1,000 addresses. Once loaded in youraccount it functions the same way as a remarketing list. Add that audience to
TopAdvert.net
an ad group and target your ads to those specific people. Note: Google won’trecognize every email on the list. Out of 10,000 email addresses, the systemmay recognize only 30 to 50 percent. Manage your expectations accordingly.
GMAIL ADSIt’s possible to show ads inside of Gmail using most of the targeting optionswe already discussed in the Display Grid in Chapter 14 on Display Networkbasics. These ads are more complicated to set up but well worth the effort.Very few advertisers make use of this format, so there’s a huge amount oftraffic up for grabs.
A mini (collapsed) ad shows on all three device categories (desktop,tablet, and mobile). It includes a couple of lines of ad text and, on mobiles, asmall image. When someone clicks on the mini ad they’ll see the main(expanded) ad instantaneously while still in their Gmail account. This is thepoint at which you get charged. You have a huge amount of real estateavailable to design your ad—650 by 300 to 1,000 pixels. If you prefer, youcan just ask your designer for a 650 × 650 pixels.
It’s even possible to include a video, embed forms, and product feeds intoyour ad.
The goal of the expanded ad is to get someone to click again and be takento your landing page, and don’t worry—you won’t be charged a second time.Typically, only 5 to 20 percent will click the second ad, so be sure to turn onthe additional column of metrics inside your AdWords account that shows“Gmail clicks through to website.” You can then see exactly how manyclicked on the expanded ad and made it all the way to your page.
Once you’ve got some experience under your belt with the other featuresof Google’s Display Network, we highly recommend testing Gmail ads.
YOUTUBEThere is a tremendous amount of opportunity available with YouTubecampaigns. We’ve devoted all of Chapter 16 to this. You can use all thevarious targeting options explained in the Display Grid and show a range ofdifferent types of video ads to viewers.
TopAdvert.net
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYThe Display Network is arguably the most effective way to test newadvertising and marketing ideas. Why settle for simple brand ads when youcan learn exactly what makes your target audience buy from you for just afew hundred dollars of testing?
Brainstorm ten dramatically different ad styles.Use Google’s Ad Gallery tool or hire a designer to create your ads inthe 300 × 250 format.
Test your ads, and once you have a winner, continue to test minorvariations on this theme.
Uncle Claude Sez
Now, we let the thousands decide what the millions will do.We make a small venture and watch cost and result. When welearn what a thousand customers cost, we know almost exactlywhat a million will cost. When we learn what they buy, weknow what a million will buy.
TopAdvert.net
A
Chapter 29
Google AnalyticsKnow Exactly Where Your Visitors
Come From and Where They’re Going
year after I escaped the Dilbert cube and started my consulting firm, Igot an ecommerce client who had a large website and sent out a million
catalogs a year. When we first began working together, they didn’t trackmuch of anything. I smacked my hand down on the conference room tableand said, “Well, that’s going to stop, right now.” I was confident (and a littlecocky), and we rolled up our sleeves and went to work.
A MILLION-DOLLAR AD TRACKING DISCOVERYFROM MY FIRST BIG CLIENTLike I said, this company mailed out a million catalogs a year to a recipientlist made up of current and former customers and names rented from 16different trade magazines. The impact of the catalog mailings was obvious—sales spiked two weeks after the catalogs went out, like clockwork, as didvisits to the website.
But which of those 16 mailing lists actually worked? And which listswere a waste of money?
And how much of the website traffic was from the catalog?How much of the sales on the website came from PPC traffic? How much
TopAdvert.net
from organic free listings? And how about blasts to the email list?At this time, I was solidly grounded in direct-marketing techniques, so I
expected this to be easy.Boy, was I ever wrong.It might be easy to track sales generated by the catalog if we used
different part numbers in the catalog than on the website. But that wouldcause endless confusion. We could track different mailing lists if we printeddifferent versions of the catalog with different part numbers in each version,but that would make things even worse.
Some customers called on the phone; others ordered online. Sometimes,the engineer specifying the product ordered it himself, and sometimes he sentthe order over to purchasing. Sometimes, the product got installed inPhiladelphia where the customer ordered it; other times, the product gotshipped to an oil refinery in Houston.
In short, perfectly connecting the dots on every sale was for all practicalpurposes impossible. I quickly realized that despite my direct-marketingdogma about measuring absolutely everything, I had to develop an accuratesense of what contributing factors were influential in closing the sale.
The first thing we did was test the 16 mailing lists we were renting fromthe magazines. We did this by mailing out postcards to portions of each list,offering a white paper. That was easily measurable and we figured thatresponse to a white paper offer would reasonably approximate likelihood tobuy from a catalog.
You might not be surprised to find out that 80 percent of the responsescame from four of those 16 lists. The other 12 lists were a waste of money.We immediately cut our catalog mailing volume in half with almost no lossof sales.
As we began to measure more and more contributing factors to each sale,we cut out more and more waste. The money they used to spend on stuff thatdidn’t work started going to things that did work. In short, the companyquadrupled its sales over the next ten years—despite being in a very slow-moving, declining industry.
Even if you don’t mail out a million catalogs a year, even if you don’t doa lot of offline marketing, and even if none of your customers hand the orderoff to a purchasing agent in Houston, you still need to measure thosecontributing factors. Sure, in theory, people should see your Google ad, click
TopAdvert.net
on it and buy, and everything should be trackable. But real life is almostalways more messy than that. That’s why Google Analytics can be a big help.With Google Analytics, you almost always have at least a decent idea of whatthings are influencing your customers to buy.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE CLICK?AdWords is great at telling you which of your ads are getting clicks and evenwhich of those clicks result in conversions. But what about the traffic you getfrom organic search or through your email campaigns? How do those sourcesconvert? Are their conversions better than what you’re getting from PPC?
Also, what about all the people who didn’t convert? What did they do onyour site? How long did they spend reading your pages? What videos didthey watch? What outbound links did they click on?
And which of your pages need improving? Which pages are alreadyworking well?
AdWords can’t answer those questions. Google Analytics can.Most people are intimidated by Google Analytics. Even the name sounds
daunting, like something über-technical that only geeks would appreciate.But don’t freak out. Plug Google Analytics (GA) into your reporting system,learn to watch and respond to it, and you will become a better marketer. Youwill improve your PPC results.
FIRST STEP: MACRO CONVERSIONS VS. MICROLet’s say you’re an ecommerce site owner and that 1 percent of your visitorsmake a purchase.
You can study this 1 percent as much as you like in your AdWordsreporting—which keywords people searched on, which ads they clicked,where users are located, what time of day they made their purchase, and soon—but none of that will tell you anything worthwhile about the other 99percent.
You could be converting at 10 percent (a rate most online retailers wouldkill for) but that would still leave 90 percent of your traffic journeying theirway anonymously through your site and leaving you with no clue as to what,if anything, was of interest to them.
TopAdvert.net
This is where GA can help you out. The first step toward learning this isto understand the difference between macro and micro conversions.
What is a macro conversion? It’s the single main action or actions thatyou want your visitor to take. If you run an ecommerce site, you want yourvisitor to make a purchase. If you run a lead-generation site, you want yourvisitor to give you his or her contact details.
Micro conversions, then, are everything else that represents a positivestep toward that macro conversion, no matter how small. That could be awhole range of things, such as taking your quiz, downloading a brochure,visiting your contact page, going to one of your social media pages, watchinga video—anything.
How to Dig Deeper into Analytics
This chapter is only a very basic introduction to GoogleAnalytics. It’s enough to get you started. If you want to fullymaster this area of marketing, we highly recommend MarketMotive’s Analytics course (www.marketmotive.com).
The more you know about which micro conversions people arecompleting—and about the people completing them—the better equippedyou are to optimize your AdWords campaigns. With that knowledge, you canmove more and more of your budget toward profitable keywords anddemographics and away from the unprofitable ones.
What are all the possible actions on your site that you want visitors to do?Browse through your site and jot them down. Seriously—every last one.
Next, set up these macro and micro conversions as “goals” in your GAaccount. To do this, go to the Admin tab inside your analytics account, lookunder the View column for the Goals section and create your goals there.
TopAdvert.net
Google will walk you through the process. One of the steps will be toassign a value to each goal.
ASSIGNING VALUES TO YOUR GOALSThere’s no scientific formula for how much value you give to eachconversion or goal. An easy way to determine value is to assign points toeach conversion or goal. The goals that move people closer to converting getmore points, and the conversion itself gets the most points. We recommendyou start with the smallest micro conversion and assign it one point. Thenwork your way up.
If, for instance, you’re an ecommerce site owner, clicking on one of yoursocial media buttons might be worth one point. Interacting with your storelocator could be five points, downloading a brochure could be ten points, andbuying a $200 item could be 200 points.
Don’t get hung up on trying to assign a dollar value for each action yourvisitor takes. That isn’t the point of this exercise. The idea is simply to set aconsistent scoring system so you can directly compare the different metricson which GA reports.
With a crude points system in place, you can compare traffic sources. Ifthe average visitor to your site via AdWords performs five points’ worth ofmicro conversions but visitors arriving via your email campaigns perform 20
TopAdvert.net
points’ worth, you can then dig deeper and figure out what’s making thedifference.
Maybe visitors from your email campaign are hitting one landing pagewhile your AdWords visitors are going to another, and that’s why there’s adiscrepancy. Comparing your micro conversions in this way tips you off towhat is and isn’t working.
You can compare so many other things, too.Which geographic areas give you visitors with the highest scores? Do
visitors from Houston score higher on average than visitors from Chicago? Ifso, you might want to adjust your AdWords campaign to bid higher andattract more Houston folks.
Even Better Analytics Data with Google’s URLBuilder Tool
If you’re running ads on networks other than AdWords, useGoogle’s URL Builder Tool to properly tag your traffic. Withthat, Analytics can compile data and let you do comparisons.
For example, how does the quality of your AdWords trafficcompare to your Facebook ads? Or how does either of thesetraffic sources compare to the direct media ads you bought?You can find the URL Builder Tool with a helpful explanationat https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/.
What about your ads on GDN? Does showing them on site A give youmore conversion points than site B? Or are they both flops?
Are you beginning to see the power that Analytics gives you to improveyour AdWords campaigns?
HOW TO GET ADWORDS AND ANALYTICS
TopAdvert.net
TALKING TO EACH OTHERIt’s possible to have an AdWords account and an Analytics account withoutthe two ever communicating. That’s not helpful. If they’re going to workproperly, you’ll want to link them. Here’s how:
1. Make sure you have “admin” rights for both accounts and that bothuse the same login email address.
2. Go to your GA account, navigate to the Admin tab, find “PropertySettings” in the middle column, and click on “AdWords Linking”below it. Click “New Link Group” and select your AdWords accountfrom the list shown.
3. Look under “Account Settings” in the left-hand column of the Admintab and ensure you’ve checked the box next to “Share data with otherGoogle products and services.”
4. Go to your AdWords account, find “Preferences” then “AutoTagging.” Make sure this is set to “yes.”
5. Finally, also under your AdWords Account Settings, go to “LinkedAccounts” and look for the “Google Analytics” section. Click on“Details” and make sure that your AdWords account is linked to yourGoogle Analytics view.
TopAdvert.net
Once you’ve completed this, you’ll get more useful reports about yourAdWords traffic in GA. The two you’ll be most interested in are:
All Traffic report. This is the report you’ll need most frequently. At ahigh level, it shows how AdWords (labeled as “Google/CPC”) isperforming compared to other sources of traffic.
AdWords-specific reports. You’ll find these under the “Acquisition”menu. There’s lots of valuable data here, so dig in and see what youcan find.
Who Gets Credit for the Sale?
TopAdvert.net
“Attribution” is a hot topic. Let’s say your prospect hears yourradio spot, does a Google search and clicks on your ad, goesback to Google to search on your brand name, clicks on yourwebsite link in the organic listings, and finally buys. Which ofthese marketing “channels” gets credit for the sale?
Officially, Google will “attribute” the sale to the last click—inthis case, your natural search listings. But, reality is much morecomplicated. Every stage in the process played its part, buthow significant was the radio ad? How much did the organiclistings contribute?
Google has a tool to help answer this, called “Multi-ChannelFunnels.” If you want to unlock the full power of Analytics,this is well worth investigating. Read about it here:https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1191180.
ANALYTICS REMARKETINGWe devoted Chapter 15 to remarketing, the single most cost-effective tool inyour Google tool belt. The good news is that it works even better when youintegrate it with Analytics. Another good reason to link your accountsimmediately.
Recall that with remarketing you build audience lists based on whatactions people do or do not take on your site. Without integrating GA, youcan only build lists based on pages people visited on your site. For example, abusiness owner who specializes in coffee products might create a list just ofpeople who visited pages under her site’s/coffeemachines/directory.
But once you integrate GA, you can create scores of additional lists basedon a myriad of other behaviors and actions:
The device a visitor used to access your siteThe length of each person’s visitThe amount of money a person spentThe number of pages a person visited
TopAdvert.net
You can even tie your remarketing lists to individual micro conversiongoals: everyone who took your quiz, everyone who downloaded yourbrochure, everyone who watched a certain video, etc.
Revisit Chapter 15 on remarketing for a fuller discussion. For now, makesure you’ve carried out these two steps:
1. Update your privacy policy.2. Go to the Admin section of GA and under the Property column you’ll
find the “Audience Definitions” section. Click to expand it, then clickon “Audiences” to find the option “Add New Audience.”
GOOGLE TAG MANAGER (GTM)A time-saving way to install Google Analytics code to your website is byusing Google Tag Manager. GTM removes the hassle of having to manuallyadd or edit code on every page of your site. You’ll need the help of your webdeveloper to set this up, but once done, you’ll be able to easily manage ormake future changes to the code yourself.
TopAdvert.net
You can think of GTM as being like an empty box (which Google calls a“container”) on every page of your site. Snippets of code (referred to as“tags”) are then added into the empty box so they’re all in one place. GA tagssend information about activity on your site to Google. For example, if youwanted to update your site’s thank-you page, you wouldn’t have to edit codeon multiple pages. Instead, you make just one small change in GTM and thisupdates the coding on all your site’s pages.
You can add AdWords conversion code and remarketing code into GTMas well. Plus, there are more advanced options, such as setting up events inGA or using GTM’s Data Layer tool. But, you’ll want to have your webdeveloper assist you with those.
For more information, visit:https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6103696.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYAnalytics isn’t just for geeks. It’s a gateway to learning more about all yourvisitors and efficiently comparing your various marketing efforts in real time.
Make your own (exhaustive) list of all the macro and microconversions visitors on your site can take.
Create goals in Analytics for each macro and micro conversion.Assign a value to each goal.Link your AdWords and GA accounts together.Tweak your GA account to give you a greater range of remarketingoptions.
Set up one remarketing audience.Ask your web developer to set up your GTM account, and add the“container” to each page on your site.
Uncle Claude Sez
TopAdvert.net
Advertising is traced down to the fraction of a penny. The cost perreply and cost per dollar of sale show up with utter exactness.
One ad is compared with another, one method with another. Headlines,settings, sizes, arguments, and pictures are compared. To reduce thecost of results even 1 percent per ad means much. . . . So no guessworkis permitted. One must know what is best. . . .
In lines where direct returns are impossible, we compare one town withanother. Scores of methods may be compared in this way, measured bycost of sales.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 30
Google Shopping CampaignsA Huge ROI Boost for eCommerce
n this chapter, we’ll show you why Google Shopping Campaigns giveecommerce site owners a far better clickthrough rate and higher ROI.
You’ll also learn three simple steps to set up your own Google ShoppingCampaign (with a little help from your webmaster).
It seems unfair that you can spend days, even weeks, agonizing over andsplit-testing ad copy, trying to find the perfect combination of words that willattract the maximum possible clicks, when posting a simple thumbnail imageof your product and its price can blow those previous best results out of thewater.
Unfair, maybe, but it’s a boon for you if you run an ecommerce site.Information marketers and service providers don’t get this feature.Ecommerce sites alone get to put images of their products directly ontoGoogle’s Search pages, via their AdWords account.
Google Shopping is built entirely around something called Shopping Ads.(These used to be called Product Listing Ads, or PLAs.) They’re the small,square-ish image ads that appear at the top of the Google Search pages,sometimes under the premium ads on the left, other times in the upper-right-hand corner. Google will show between four and eight of these on the searchresults page and feature the image of the product, the price, about 30characters of the product’s title, and some optional promotional text.
TopAdvert.net
These images draw the eye and attract a disproportionate share of clicks.Ecommerce stores that run AdWords Shopping Ad campaigns often bring intheir highest ROI through these simple ads.
Google used to provide Shopping Ads absolutely free of charge. Thegravy train ended in 2013. Then in early 2014, Google introduced ShoppingCampaigns, and integration of Shopping Ads into AdWords was complete.
If you’re an ecommerce site owner using Shopping Ads for the first time,you’ll be tickled at how easy it is to upload details of your product stock toAdWords.
TopAdvert.net
Depending on the format of your shopping cart, you could have anindividual ad for every single product in your inventory up and showing onGoogle in just a few hours.
HOW TO SET UP A GOOGLE SHOPPINGCAMPAIGNUnfortunately there’s no way to just click a button and connect yourecommerce site directly to your AdWords account. You’ll have to go througha Google Merchant Center (GMC) account. But there’s a step even beforeyou do that. Here’s how you set this up.
Step One: Create a Data FeedHow easy is it to plug your product inventory into AdWords? That dependson the technical makeup of your site and shopping cart. Assuming you’re nota technical wizard with the ability to code your own site entirely by hand,you’ll probably want to speak with your webmaster about exporting yourproduct list as a data feed, a specially formatted file containing a list of allyour products and all the associated relevant information (price, brand,image, availability, etc.).
The vast majority of modern ecommerce platforms make this easy to dowith plugins and extensions, so you should expect this to be quick andstraightforward for any competent webmaster.
Step Two: Open a Google Merchant Center AccountVisit http://google.com/merchants to read about this. It’s free. The mainpurpose is to plug in the data feed from your site. Again, you may prefer tosimply arrange for your webmaster to enter your data feed details byproviding him or her with the login details of your new GMC account.
This should be a one-time job. If you set up and install the data feedcorrectly, it will update automatically as your inventory changes. For bestresults, set this so that your feed is updated daily. (Google likes fresh data!)
TopAdvert.net
Step Three: Link Your Google Merchant Center Accountto Your AdWords AccountWhy isn’t there an option to plug your data feed directly into your AdWordsaccount? The answer is that GMC acts as a kind of middleman, assessingyour feed, keeping an eye on the data, and making sure the format is correct.
Linking your Merchant Center to your AdWords account is a two-stepprocess. You’ll need to send an approval request from the Merchant Center toyour AdWords account. See the Merchant Center help site for moreinformation.
HOW TO GET YOUR GOOGLE SHOPPINGCAMPAIGN UP AND RUNNINGYou can now create a new campaign by backing out to your “All onlinecampaigns” view, clicking the blue “+ Campaign” button, and choose the“shopping” option.
You’ll see the usual setup options such as “Default bid,” “Daily budget,”“Location,” and so on. Once the setup process is complete, your products willautomatically be placed into one product group called “All products.”
You could, if you were so inclined, immediately activate your campaignand set your ads running. For most ecommerce site owners, however, thiswould be a bad idea. Why?
Because all the items in a group will have the same cost per click. Youwouldn’t want to bid the same price per click for a 50-inch flat-screentelevision as you would for a cheap pair of wireless headphones.
So, start by dividing the “All products” group into a set of subgroups.
TopAdvert.net
You can have separate bid prices for each. You can create subgroups ofproducts based on any number of attributes those products might share, suchas:
CategoryBrandProduct typeConditionItem ID
If you choose to divide up the group up by brand, you could create asubgroup for every individual brand and, based on the attributes recorded inyour data feed, Google will find and automatically transfer the appropriateproduct into each of these new subgroups.
Each of these new subgroups can then be divided into a further set ofsubgroups based on either the same attribute you just used or a completelydifferent one.
And you can continue to subdivide and subdivide and subdivide, literallydown to seven levels.
Again, why subdivide them? Answer: so that you can bid separateamounts.
Using our electronics store example, here’s how you might subdivide agroup:
1. You create the “All products” group, which contains your entireinventory: precisely 500 individual items that are available topurchase from your store.
All products (500 items)You subdivide this group by “category.” Your store features five
different categories of products, each of which (for this example)contains 100 different items. This gives you one main group called“All products” with five subgroups, each containing 100 products.
All products (500 items)
Televisions (100 items)Set top boxes (100 items)
TopAdvert.net
Videogame consoles (100 items)Sound systems (100 items)Smartphones (100 items)
2. You subdivide televisions by the “brand” attribute. Your storefeatures televisions by four different manufacturers, each of whichhas 25 different items in your inventory. So, you now have one maingroup called “All products,” five subgroups containing 100 productseach, and one of these subgroups divided into its own set of fivesubgroups, each containing 20 items:
All products (500 items)Televisions (100 items)
Samsung (20 items)Philips (20 items)Sony (20 items)Toshiba (20 items)Finlux (20 items)
Set top boxes (100 items)Videogame consoles (100 items)Sound systems (100 items)Smartphones (100 items)
Keep on subdividing as you see fit. Maybe you subdivide your SonyTelevision subgroup by another category, this time screen size. Next, yousubdivide sound systems by a different category.
Once you’ve finished subdividing, you can customize each subgroup,adjusting the maximum CPC for each one or even excluding particulargroups entirely from being advertised.
Warning: Once you’ve created your full range of subgroups, your productdivisions are set in stone. The only way to adjust them is to delete the productgroups and begin again from scratch.
There is no ideal one-size-fits-all system for dividing up your products.
TopAdvert.net
BIDDINGEnsure that your conversion tracking is set up to specify the actual amount ofeach sale as the value of each conversion. This enables you to set bids foryour shopping ads based on profit rather than just the number of items sold.
To see this in your AdWords account, add the column called “ConversionValue / Cost.” This is the equivalent of Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), avaluable metric.
As with most things in AdWords, you’re looking for outliers. Increasewhat’s performing well; decrease or eliminate what’s performing badly. Foryour shopping campaign, this means finding individual products that havesold consistently and profitably. You’ll want to increase the bids for these toencourage Google to show them more often. However, don’t be tempted todo huge bid increases at any one time. A “little and often” approach is abetter way to go. You won’t typically increase the bid for any item by morethan 10 percent at any given time.
RLSA (see Chapter 26) can be a powerful addition to your GoogleShopping Campaigns. You can identify previous visitors to your website—people who made it as far as your cart, or even buyers—and increase your
TopAdvert.net
bids on the shopping ads you show them.
NEGATIVE KEYWORDSSince it’s not possible to target individual keywords with shoppingcampaigns, you may be tempted to ignore the keyword section altogether.This would be a mistake. You can add negative keywords to stop yourshopping ads from showing when people search for particular terms.Regularly review your search query report to identify and add new negativekeywords.
GETTING ADVANCEDMultiple CampaignsAs your skills get more advanced with Google Shopping, it’s possible—andadvisable—to have more than one shopping campaign in your AdWordsaccount. This allows you to “sculpt” various search queries into specificcampaigns. For example, you might wish to split your campaigns into searchqueries that contain your brand, and those that don’t. And you would needtwo campaigns to do this.
You’ll need to use the Campaign Priority setting—we told you to ignorethis earlier—to get the best results. You may also want to bid differentamounts for each of the two groups of search queries.
Note that you can now control the various bids for desktops, tablets, andmobiles all from one campaign. However, we like to separate campaigns bydevice, just to get that little bit of extra control.
Multiple CountriesIf you’re showing shopping ads in multiple countries, be sure your feeds areaccurate.
Troubleshooting1. Disapproved ads. If your shopping ads get disapproved, check the
TopAdvert.net
various attributes. The following is not an extensive checklist for this,but it should get you started.
In most countries, you’ll need to ensure your feed includes at leasttwo of the following three attributes: Brand, MPN, and GTIN.
The currency of your feed needs to match the currency displayedon your website.
Check that your shipping details are accurate.The price of every product in the feed needs to match the priceshown on the website.
2. Diagnosing problems. Make use of the Diagnostics section in yourMerchant Center to see how many products are disapproved and thepossible reasons why.
ONGOING MANAGEMENT OF YOUR SHOPPINGCAMPAIGNSIf you’re a retailer, your inventory changes frequently. Run regular checks onthe products in your shopping campaigns to be sure they match your currentstock. You can find various shopping reports under the Dimensions tab. Usethis in addition to your search query report to gain insights into yourshopping campaigns.
And note: you can generally expect a lower impression share fromshopping campaigns compared to regular search campaigns. Anything over50 percent is considered good.
FEED OPTIMIZATIONAs mentioned before, Google Shopping does not use keywords to target yourads. Google decides which ads to show based on how closely a user’s searchquery matches the product information in the Merchant Center. If you want toconvince Google to show your products more often, you may need tooptimize that data feed. You can do this using Feed Rules in your GMC.These are fairly basic, but it’s a good place to start.
As your skills get more advanced, you may opt for a third-party tool. Werecommend Data Feed Watch as a good place to start.
TopAdvert.net
There are a lot of things you can optimize, but the title is the mostimportant. Always use the noun associated with your product. (If you selljeans, include the word “jeans”; if it’s snooker tables you sell, include thephrase “snooker table.”) Add in any brand names, too. You may also want toinclude additional attributes such as gender, size, and color in your title, andfor best results, keep your title to a maximum of 70 characters.
To make sure your campaign contains the right Google ProductCategories, refer to this article in the Google Merchant Center help:https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324436. This will guide youthrough finding the best possible Google product categories for your items.
Advanced users may choose to add custom labels to their product feed.This is a way of adding additional information to your feed that you can thenuse in your AdWords campaign. For example, you could add a custom labelto create various price buckets for your products: $0 to $50, $50 to $100,$100 to $250, and $250+. You can also add a bestseller status or seasonallabel.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYIf you’re an ecommerce site owner, Shopping Campaigns are Google’s gift toyou. They let you sell your products on Google’s regular search pages usingimages.
Speak with your webmaster about creating a data feed of your productinventory.
Open a Google Merchant Center account and add in your data feed.Link your GMC account to your AdWords account.Create a new AdWords Shopping Campaign, starting with an “Allproducts” group, and then subdivide it into appropriate subgroups.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 31
AdWords EditorYour Power Tool for Managing
Campaigns with Ease
n this chapter, you’ll learn six ways that AdWords Editor can beinvaluable to you even if you’re not running an agency.
AdWords Editor is the popular software application provided by Google thatlets you edit AdWords accounts from your desktop and upload changes whenyou’re done.
It not only makes AdWords adjustments easier but also provides a variety ofextra functions you can’t perform in the browser interface. It’s ideal foroffering a bird’s-eye view of your campaigns and ad groups, and it’sinvaluable for quickly and easily monitoring the health of your account.
How to Get the Latest Version of AdWordsEditor
Download the latest version of the Editor for Windows or Macat http://google.com/adwordseditor.
TopAdvert.net
Once you install it, the software will notify you when newversions are available and it needs updating. Note that theGoogle development team managing the Editor is small; newfeatures from the regular AdWords interface can take monthsto appear there, if at all.
WHO IS THE ADWORDS EDITOR FOR?Folks assume the Editor is only for PPC agencies. Actually, any person witha sizeable AdWords account will benefit from using it. It’s good if you wantto make swift assessments of your campaigns. It’s better still if you havemultiple users who are accessing an individual account, and it’s invaluable ifyou want to make any bulk changes.
Google has been gradually adding Editor functions into the regularAdWords browser interface, but there are still some jobs you can’t performwithout it.
Begin by installing the software. Once it’s installed, download yourAdWords account data by opening the Editor, clicking on “Open Account,”and entering your AdWords login details.
You should also take the time to download stats from at least the past 30days.
Going forward, every time you use the Editor, be sure to click “GetRecent Changes” before carrying out any work.
This is mission critical if you’re not the only person who accesses theaccount! When performing this update, you’ll have a choice between “Basic”and “More Data”; we recommend always going with the latter.
Here are a few examples of the tasks you can perform with the Editor.
Example One: Add Keywords in Bulk
TopAdvert.net
Sometimes, particularly when you’re building a new account or campaign,you’ll want to add a large number of keywords all at once. The problem isthat in the browser interface, you can only easily add keywords to one adgroup at a time. If you’ve got hundreds or even thousands of keywords toadd, that could be incredibly laborious.
In the Editor, however, you can add keywords to multiple ad groupsacross multiple campaigns.
To do this, import your keyword list into a spreadsheet or databaseprogram, format the list of keywords to match the Editor’s requirements, andthen simply copy and paste the list. Formatting instructions are here:https://support.google.com/adwords/editor/answer/56368.
It may take you a couple of tries at first to get the spreadsheet or table intothe right format. But once you’ve got it sorted, you can add tens of thousandsof keywords across thousands of ad groups, in dozens of campaigns, in amatter of seconds.
Example Two: Edit Multiple AdsWhat if you need to change some specific wording in your ad? Maybe youchanged a product name. Or maybe you’re running a new special offer. Ormaybe you’ve created a new Path 1 for testing.
The Editor gives you a search-and-replace feature that lets you do justthat.
For example, if a large number of your ads have been advertising a “JuneSale,” running a simple search-and-replace will let you change every suchinstance to “July Sale” across multiple campaigns at once.
Example Three: Change Bids in BulkYou can change all your individual keyword bids in one fell swoop using theEditor. Even better, you can adjust your bids based on specific rules. Forexample, you can instruct the Editor to search all your campaigns, find everykeyword that’s showing in position 5 or lower, and then increase that bid,either by a dollar amount or a percentage.
TopAdvert.net
Example Four: Review Your Campaign SettingsOur friends at WebSavvy (www.websavvy.com.au) have a powerful butsimple practice: once each week, they check the account of every singleclient to review campaign settings. Sometimes, clients try to go into accountsand change things by themselves. One wrong adjustment at the campaignlevel can temporarily cripple an account. If a client makes an unfortunatemistake like that, it’s important to catch it early.
The Editor is a great place to perform this check. It lets you view a hugerange of settings and very quickly jump from account to account.
It even lets you copy campaigns from one account to another. The needfor that may be rare, but when it comes up, this functionality is a massivetimesaver.
Example Five: GDN Targeting OptionsIndividual ad groups have a huge array of targeting options. If you try toadjust each ad group manually in the traditional online interface, you’ll find itslow and arduous. But in the Editor, you can quickly make bulk changes tolarge numbers of ad groups.
Not every ad group setting is accessible from the Editor, but this will stillsave you hours of tedious work.
Example Six: Adding Negative Keywords and PlacementsThe more experienced you become with AdWords, the more you’ll findyourself needing to make ad group, campaign, and account changes on alarge scale, as opposed to minor tweaks on individual keywords or ads.
Let’s say you’re looking over your Display Network campaigns and makethe weird discovery that your ads always perform poorly when they show onAbout.com. (Other advertisers do fine there, but for some reason yoursalways tank.)
You can exclude the About.com placement so that your ads never showup there again. The Editor makes it simple and fast to add that excludedAbout.com URL across every GDN campaign.
For more information and training on use of the Editor, visit the AdWords
TopAdvert.net
Editor Help Center at https://support.google.com/adwords/editor. ForAdWords Editor Troubleshooting, go tohttps://support.google.com/adwords/editor/troubleshooter/2893845.
AdWords Editor and Microsoft Excel: Workingin Harmony
AdWords Editor and Microsoft Excel go together like peasand carrots. Once you reach a point where the majority of yourcampaigns and ad groups are performing well, your focus willmove away from small details and onto your big-picturestrategy. It’s at this point that you’ll truly see the value inhaving these two applications working in harmony. It’s easierto transfer data between Excel and the Editor than betweenExcel and the online interface.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYGet started using the Editor, even if you still consider yourself a PPCbeginner.
Download AdWords Editor and import your AdWords account datainto it.
Every time you log in, run the “Get Recent Changes” feature.Review your campaign settings regularly to be sure that some mission-critical element hasn’t changed.
Use the Editor any time you need to make a bulk change involvingmultiple ads, ad groups, or campaigns.
Use the Editor any time you need to copy and paste ads, keywords, orad groups from campaign to campaign or account to account.
TopAdvert.net
O
Chapter 32
AdWords ScriptsAutomate the Grunt Work
ne of the first giant 80/20 leaps you’ll ever take in your business comeswhen you delegate and even outsource the low-dollar repetitive stuff
you’ve been wasting hours on every week. When you get low-value work offyour plate, you can focus on the high-leverage, high-value stuff that’s the realreason you got into business in the first place.
There’s a good chance you’ve had the familiar thought during your regularday-to-day work, “If I could just automate this . . .” And we’ll bet that if youhaven’t had that thought about your AdWords account, you will soon. This isequally true of both working creative tasks (such as ad writing and keywordresearch) and reporting. There’s great value in having key data pushed to youin an easy-to-use format rather than having to go search for it, dig it up, cleanit off, polish it, and interpret it.
That’s where AdWords Scripts come in.Let’s be frank: Scripts are the future of Google AdWords. Any PPC
agency that is not using scripts will soon be dead and buried. Noexaggeration.
On a more practical level, they’re a way to keep your team happy, even ifyou’re not an agency. They allow you to automate grunt work. With them inplace, you can spend less time on mundane tasks like bid management andmore time on strategy and your relationships with customers and clients—thestuff of business that really makes a difference.
TopAdvert.net
WHAT ARE SCRIPTS?Scripts are mini programs, or pieces of code, that run inside your AdWordsaccount. They let you manage certain aspects of accounts systematically,programmatically. They can make changes to your account for you or justsend you an email alert when certain conditions happen inside your account.
WHY USE SCRIPTS?Scripts let you make automated changes directly in an account. For example,you can use a script to add a label to a keyword, ad group, campaign, or adinside an account.
Scripts can help you identify problems sooner. Should something gowrong in your account, you can set up a script to email you. For example,“Note: Impressions have dropped by 50 percent week-over-week on thisparticular ad group.”
Scripts let you do highly customized reporting. Let’s say you’ve got aGoogle spreadsheet set up with an established template—a dashboard, charts,and so on. The right script can push your AdWords data into that spreadsheetand populate it according to your template. That way, your reporting comesto you automatically with little to no effort.
You can get seriously creative with your scripts. Anything with an API(API stands for Application Program Interface, which is a back door toAdWords control by third party software programs), you can use as a datafeed. The script can then refer to it. For example, you can pull in data on thecurrent weather in a particular city. If there’s a sudden snowstorm, you canadjust your ads automatically to promote your specialty snow shovels.
You could have an inventory feed so that your ads automatically pausewhen a product is out of stock or down to the last one or two units. You canset it so that prices and availability change automatically in your ads based onthe data in your feed.
Automated Rules has served as a useful tool, but scripts are morepowerful. One of the limitations with Rules is that they can only run daily.AdWords scripts, however, can be scheduled to run up to once an hour.Scripts can help you find broken links (404 pages) quickly in an account thatyou might be sending a lot of traffic to.
TopAdvert.net
You can run scripts at the MCC (My Client Center) level, rather thanindividual accounts. You are limited to 50 accounts at a time, but this ispowerful if you’re managing a lot of accounts and need functions and alertsto be automated.
Scripts involve code, but you don’t need to be a coder! If you can cut andpaste, then getting started is quick and easy.
HOW TO SET UP A SCRIPTLog in to your account and go to Bulk Operations (lower-left-hand corner ofthe interface) to find Scripts.
Hit the big red +Scripts button, and you’ll be taken to a code windowwhere the first three lines of code have been written for you. Assumingyou’re more of an AdWords person than a coder, we’ll find some existingcode that you can cut and paste.
Click the “Show examples” button from the menu options across the topto find a stack of scripts ready for you to use immediately.
Give a name to your script where you see “Unnamed script.” You’ll needto authorize it, as it will be making changes to your account. (This is Googleproviding a layer of safety.)
Next, hit the big red Preview button. Always preview your script beforeyou save it and schedule it to run.
Once you have the script in your account, you can either hit the Runbutton or the +Create schedule link. Scheduling options include hourly, daily,weekly, monthly, one time, or none. (For example, you could schedule thescript to run just once at 1:00 A.M. on the 18th of August or every day of theyear at 4:00 P.M.)
USEFUL AND SIMPLE SCRIPTS (FREEBIES!)If you’re new to scripts, start with a few that won’t change anything in youraccount but that simply report on the data they’ve found.
Here’s a good example of just such a script. Set it up and it will send youan email every day that not only tells you the impression score of youraccount, but also sends you a chart so that at a quick glance you can seewhat’s happening in the account. This URL will take you to a text file of the
TopAdvert.net
script: http://goo.gl/4nkVfx. Go there, copy the code, and paste it into thecode window of your AdWords script editor over the top of the three firstlines of code that are already there. Change the email address at the top toindicate where you would like your daily notifications sent. Then, name thescript and authorize it. Preview it, save, and schedule it to run daily.
You can find loads of script examples to copy on Google’s developer sitefor both single accounts and manager accounts. Check them out here:https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/docs/solutions.
Their Link Checker script—which you can use at the MCC level—checksfor any broken links on your site. (You don’t want to be wasting money onads going to “page not found” 404 error pages.) Find that here:https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/docs/solutions/mccapp-link-checker.
Scroll down to Google’s setup instructions. Find the link checkertemplate (a Google spreadsheet) that you’ll need in order to store the outputfrom this script. Make a copy of the sheet, and give it a name of your own.Once you have that, go up to the address bar in your browser, select and copythe URL, go back into AdWords, and paste the URL into the fifth line ofcode where it says “SPREADSHEET_URL =”. (This deletes the placeholdercode that’s currently there.)
Paste in Google’s code. Then name the script, authorize it, preview it,save it, and schedule it.
Another great place to find scripts is at www.freeadwordsscripts.com.This is a site owned by Russell Savage with more than a hundred scripts forall manner of things, such as the weather function mentioned earlier in thechapter.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYRemember: Scripts are not for coders; they are for smart AdWordsmanagers.
Go and play with a few scripts. Take the two examples we’veprovided, and try them out on one or two accounts.
There are some amazing scripts out in the internet space, many ofwhich can simply be copied and pasted. Check out all the free scriptsavailable from Google or sites like Free AdWords Scripts
TopAdvert.net
(www.freeadwordsscripts.com) and Optmyzr (http://optmyzr.com).They’re worth exploring, testing, and using.
Start with scripts that simply report. Once you’re comfortable withthose, work with a few that make actual changes inside your account.
If you manage multiple accounts, try out your scripts on one or twountil you feel comfortable with them. Then try setting them up at theMCC level.
If you’re an agency, you simply cannot live without scripts! They’llsave you huge amounts of time, and the more you implement andunderstand them, the more you can move on to more advancedscripts.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 33
AdWords ExperimentsTest and Succeed with Little Risk
he first great genius of PPC was how quickly it let you test, fail, retest,and succeed with your advertising.
Every situation in life is a kind of test, where you’re guessing what you thinkwill happen, running real-world experiments, and finding out if you’re right.How will this person react if I do such-and-such? What happens if I say this?What happens if I invest time and money to try that?
Sadly, for all too many people, every small failure—in social settings,athletics, business ventures, or anything else—feels like death.
Life doesn’t have to feel that way. If something you earnestly try doesn’tsucceed, you cut your losses and move on to the next test. As goes thefamous quote that’s often attributed to Thomas Edison: “I have not failed.I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
CAMPAIGN DRAFTS AND EXPERIMENTSEverything you do inside an AdWords account is a little science experiment.It’s Job One for you or the person running your AdWords account to becontinually testing. In fact, the primary reason for having an AdWordsaccount is to experiment and learn what messages and offers do and do notwork with your audience. (The quality traffic to your website is merely the
TopAdvert.net
side benefit.)AdWords Experiments is a feature that lets you test changes to your
account on a small amount of traffic without having to subject entirecampaigns—or your entire account—to undue risk.
WHY USE EXPERIMENTS?Think of Experiments as a kind of quarantine—a safe laboratory where testsyou run can’t wreck you if they fail.
The big benefit is being able to effectively quarantine the new idea toimpact only a small portion of your traffic.
Imagine that you’re considering testing a 20 percent bid increase on oneof your major campaigns. That could be a significant amount of money, andit carries risk. But what if you could try out the idea on a small portion ofyour campaign? The risk to you would be far less, and if it proved profitable,you could expand it to the rest of your campaign. (Otherwise, you wouldsimply end the experiment, with little to no harm done.)
And Google makes it easy to see the results of your experiments. Notime-consuming double handling of data; no exporting Excel to create pivottables; none of that.
HOW TO SET UP YOUR EXPERIMENTAlways start with a hypothesis—the big idea you’re going to test. In otherwords, if I do X, I expect Y to happen, which will mean Z for my business.
Real-life examples would look like these:
If I increase my bids by 20 percent in this specific ad group, I expectads to show higher on the page.
I expect my clickthrough rate to improve (i.e., more clicks from thesame number of impressions).
The result will be more traffic to my website and more leads for mybusiness at a CPA that’s still profitable.
Because I don’t know if this hypothesis will turn out to be true, I test it.To do this:
TopAdvert.net
Pick the campaign you want to test, and write out a clear if-thenhypothesis.
Create a draft copy of your test campaign and give it a name.Make the changes you want to test inside the draft campaign.Click “Apply” to turn the Draft campaign into an experiment.Choose what percentage of your traffic you want to direct to theexperiment. To be statistically relevant, you should be aiming for atleast 30 conversions in a month with each new experiment campaign.That means that if your current campaign is getting 150 conversionsper month, in order to ensure that your experiment produces at least30 conversions, you’ll want to allocate 20 percent of your traffic tothe new test campaign. (150 × .20 = 30.)
Set an end date for the test.
TYPES OF EXPERIMENTSThere are several different kinds of tests you can run. Take the time to testdrive some of the experiments that can help you maximize your results.
Test a New BidThis is the most common type of experiment.
Back when Google still showed ads on the right side of the page, we hada client who wanted to increase traffic over Christmas and New Year’s. Intheir case, it was normal for leads to drop off during the holidays, but theydidn’t want their expensive sales reps sitting idle. They felt it would beworthwhile to spend a little more, get extra leads, and ensure that their staffstayed busy.
In their main campaign, ads were showing in the top positions about halfthe time and on the right side of the page the other half. Ads showing on theright consistently got a fraction of the clicks, so the client wanted to increasebids by about 20 percent and see if this would get ads to show twice as oftenat the top.
So we ran an experiment. The result: ads started showing at the top ninetimes more often than on the side. The cost per lead did in fact go up by about20 percent, but traffic almost doubled. It was a successful experiment; there
TopAdvert.net
were plenty of leads to keep the sales reps busy.
Test the Performance of a New Landing Page DesignLet’s say your web designer created a new landing page and sent you theURL for it. In the past, if you wanted to run an A/B split test to see how thenew page performed, you had two essential options: 1) use a tool like VWO,Optimizely, or Google Optimize to do the split testing, or 2) duplicate yourGoogle ads, point the destination URL in the new ads to your new page, andthen let Google rotate the traffic. That often got messy.
Now, it’s simpler. Create your draft campaign, set the new landing pageURL as the destination for your ads, and apply that to whatever portion ofyour traffic you choose—10 percent, 25 percent, or more. You can now seethe results of your new landing page on that percentage of your traffic.
Test a New Campaign StructureIf you inherited an existing campaign from a client, you can use Experimentsto test the effects of your new ad group setup against the old one. You cantest the impact of creating new ads or adding in new keywords.
MEASURE YOUR RESULTSLet your experiment run for at least two weeks. User behavior can varysignificantly over weekdays as compared to weekends. If your early resultsare poor, you can turn off the experiment and go back to your originalcampaign setup.
Google makes it easy to see how statistically significant your results are.Each metric has a little icon next to it with one, two, or three arrows pointingup or down. The more arrows you have, the more statistically relevant yourexperiment is.
ROLL IT OUTIf you’re convinced you’ve had a successful test, Experiments makes it easierto roll out your draft as a new replacement campaign. Just hit the “apply”
TopAdvert.net
button and then “update your original campaign.” Or if you prefer, you canchoose “convert to a new campaign.” This will pause the original campaignand run the new experimental campaign in its place.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYBrainstorm the new offer, bidding strategy, or ad copy idea you wouldlike to test.
Write it out as a hypothesis: If I do X, I expect Y to happen, which willmean Z for my business.
Create a draft campaign. Make the changes in it that you would like totest.
Run for two weeks and watch your results. Decide if the experimentshould be ended or rolled out wider.
Rinse and repeat. Always be testing!
Uncle Claude Sez
We try test campaigns to try out new methods on advertising alreadysuccessful. Thus, we constantly seek for better methods, withoutinterrupting plans already proved out. . . . Again we come back toscientific advertising.
TopAdvert.net
D
Chapter 34
How to Hire the Right AdWordsAgency
id you know that having an agency manage your campaigns may verywell trump hiring an in-house employee? It’s true. In this chapter, we’ll
walk you through 11 key qualifying questions you should ask before hiringany agency and suggest the best payment model for getting the results youneed. We’ll also show you how to sidestep the deadly pitfall of handing fullownership of your AdWords account to someone else, while still getting themanagement help you need.
One of my Mastermind Club members, Bill Crawford, owned a basementwaterproofing franchise in Chicago. Bill honed his AdWords chops andfound out (as is often the case) that even in a narrow niche like “basementwaterproofing” in a local area like Chicago offers a great deal of traffic if youbuild your campaigns properly.
His lead flow expanded dramatically in three months. His business wentfrom struggling to prosperous. Inevitably, he started talking about his successat franchisor meetings. Almost without trying, he picked up 16 clients—otherfranchisors around the country. He was able to easily replicate what he’d sopainstakingly set up in other metro areas. Suddenly, he had a bunch of ravingfans and unwittingly became the world’s number-one expert on basementwaterproofing for Google AdWords.
Many PPC experts, consultants, and agencies have grown from similarcircumstances. Hiring the right agency can be a huge boon for your business,
TopAdvert.net
too.But hiring the right agency is hard. It’s a lot harder than finding a good
accountant or attorney!
A WORD OF WARNING BEFORE YOUOUTSOURCEThis chapter is about how to identify a good agency.
But before we go into that, I need you to grasp the value and importanceof mastering AdWords. If you have your hand on the throttle, if you’rebuying the clicks, if you’re picking the keywords and writing the ads, youabsolutely have your finger on the pulse of your marketing. You gain deepinsights and a sort of intimacy with your customers. Yes, even though youexperience your customers through columns of data, you are indirectlytouching hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people.
There is no substitute for this. And there are few jobs in any companymore valuable than the person who buys the web traffic, especially when it’sdone right.
That’s why you should only outsource AdWords with great care and youneed full confidence in the person who manages it for you. Please keep inmind that fewer than 10 percent of the AdWords agencies in the world haveeven mastered most of the book you hold in your hands, let alone all of it.The other day, I met the founder of a $40 million company. He was chiefshareholder and CEO, and he was still managing AdWords because hestruggled to find someone with the chops to do it properly.
Nevertheless, if you’re managing your AdWords manager properly, youraccount will grow and your business right along with it. And as your businessgrows, every minute of your working time will become more valuable.
Eventually, you’ll reach the point where you make more dollars tacklinghighly strategic projects and opportunities than by managing keywords andads. Optimizing your AdWords campaigns is easily $100 or even$1,000/hour work, but you’ll know there’s $10,000/hour work to be foundelsewhere.
At that point, it’s time for someone else to take over the reins. Plan on it.Decide you’re going to hand this off to capable individuals long before your
TopAdvert.net
PPC campaigns start to show signs of neglect.Before we go on, though, let me make two things clear:
1. AdWords is not easy to outsource. Typically, it’s one of the absolutehardest marketing jobs you can hand off to an outside person or firm.The money wasted by incompetent agencies around the world is tensof billions of dollars of pure larceny.
2. You should not outsource it too soon. It’s doubly hard to outsource ifyou don’t thoroughly understand it yourself. Time spent learningAdWords is never wasted. I can’t tell you how many customers havesaid to me, “Perry, I learned AdWords from you in 2005, and I’veapplied all the stuff I learned from you in all kinds of other situationsthat had nothing to do with AdWords.” AdWords itself is the bestdirect-marketing education I know of. It’s also a lucrative career for aconsultant when the client understands the value of both AdWordsand the consultant’s expertise.
Onward. You have two options for finding a manager for your AdWordsaccount: 1) hire someone in-house or 2) hire an agency.
With the in-house route, you get a person who will have more intimateknowledge of your business, your objectives, your values, your immediateplans, and such.
Most people choose the in-house option to save money. But in our view,this is false economy. Any savings you get by hiring someone internally caneasily be dwarfed by the increase in profits that a quality agency can provide.
AdWords-focused agencies also give you a number of other benefits thatinternal employees will struggle to match:
PPC is all they do. Keeping up with Google’s perpetual changes,improvements, and tweaks is a challenge that PPC agencies have boththe time and motivation to stay on top of. In fact, this is probably thebiggest argument for not doing it yourself.
By managing multiple accounts, an agency is able to observe patternsand effective strategies that you may never notice working on a singleaccount.
Good agencies will have direct access to a Google representative,
TopAdvert.net
possibly several.Google often provides agencies with early access to various betafeatures before they’re rolled out to the general public.
If you’re ready to let a professional take the wheel of your AdWordsaccount, nine times out of ten, an agency is the smartest choice.
But knowing that you plan to go the agency route doesn’t mean yourdecision-making is over. No exaggeration: The difference in class betweenthe best and worst agencies is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon. Badagencies incinerate dollar bills at a frightening pace.
Here are some guidelines to help you make a confident decision.
WHAT PAYMENT MODEL SHOULD YOUFOLLOW?Most PPC agencies will use one of the following three payment models.
Percentage of SpendExpect something in the region of 10 to 20 percent of your total AdWordsspend. An agency may charge a bit more if your account is small, butanything above this is dangerously close to overcharging.
Frankly, we’re not fans of this payment model. Under it, the agency’simmediate incentive is to increase your AdWords spend. Yes, you want yourbusiness to grow, and you want to be able to spend more to attract the bestcustomers. But a truly good agency should be motivated to decrease youroverall costs and increase your profit—not your spend.
Fixed FeeThis is simple, straightforward, and generally comfortable since you neverwonder where your agency stands. It’s a good, reliable payment model.
Performance-Based
TopAdvert.net
The agency offers to reduce your cost per action (CPA) to a fixed number, orperhaps to an agreed-upon percentage that’s below your historic average.You pay them when they achieve it.
This sounds good in theory, and it can work sometimes. But treadcarefully.
Let’s say you have three keywords on your account with CPAs of $5,$10, and $20. An agency might offer to reduce your average CPA to below$10. But how do they accomplish this?
An unscrupulous one would just shut down the $20 CPA keyword, evenif it’s the one that brings in 80 percent of your leads and sales.
A good agency will be motivated to maximize your profits. You need tobe absolutely sure that the agency has your best interests at heart if you’regoing to go with this model.
You can combine incentive models. You can pay a retainer plus apercentage of ad spend plus a percentage of sales, for example.
11 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE HIRING ANAGENCYSome carry more weight than others, but none of these questions here aretrivial. See how many of these you can answer by researching the websites ofthe agencies you’ve shortlisted. After that, speak to each agency directly toobtain answers to everything else.
1. Did the Person Who Is Going to Be Managing YourAdWords Account Learn AdWords on Their Own Dime?This is the acid test for account managers. There is something about learningto make your Google campaign profitable using your own money that makesyou get smart faster than anything else. Your mistakes are directly painful,and you never forget the lessons you learn.
This is in stark contrast to the employee who is assured three squaremeals a day regardless of whether the traffic converts or not. The two are noteven remotely comparable.
If you are going to hire an agency (or employee or contractor) to manage
TopAdvert.net
your campaigns, ask them to prove to you that they built a successful,profitable campaign with their own money. This is the gold standard.
The next best thing after that is the contractor, employer, or agency wholearned on someone else’s dime but was incentivized by commissions tomake the campaigns successful. Again, they need to prove to you that theymade campaigns hit pay dirt.
2. Is the Agency Really an Agency?You want to find out if the company is really just a one-man band. You wantan agency with lots of resources, lots of experience, and personnel. You don’twant your AdWords account to be neglected because your lone worker hasgone on holiday or come down with the flu.
Now mind you, we do have a small handful of expert colleagues whowork solo without a big staff around them. They know AdWords inside andout and network closely with other experts in making strategic decisions. Wetrust them because we know them, and they come with the respect of all thebest experts in the business. They’re an exception to this rule.
But beware of lone-ranger account managers who come with nocredentials, no certification, and no backing of any kind by the big players.
3. What Services Does the Agency Offer?The best answer? They specialize in PPC and little else. If they also offersearch engine optimization (SEO), social media, web design, printfulfillment, and lots more, this is a red flag. Some multiservice companieswill say that they offer PPC when it’s really only a sideline or they outsourcethat service.
If you need knee surgery, you don’t go to a general practitioner or a heartdoctor. You get a specialist. PPC campaigns are no different. You’re lookingfor stone-cold, PPC-obsessed professionals. Your business deserves nothingless.
Never, ever just “let your webmaster handle it.” And you don’t throw itover the wall to your IT guy.
TopAdvert.net
4. How Did You Hear About the Agency?The absolute best circumstances under which to hire an agency are:
1. A trusted colleague recommended the firm to you, or2. You heard one of the agency’s senior managers give a brilliant talk at
an event.
Always get references or case studies from previous or current customers.If you hire an agency that contacted you out of the blue by email or by
cold calling, without you seeking them out first, what does it mean? A firmlike that usually has other priorities—they may be more focused on grabbingmarket share than on doing a high-quality job for you the client. Manyagencies are mills, where the salespeople are far more talented than theaccount managers.
5. Have They Worked with Anyone Else in Your SpecificMarket or Vertical Niche?If not, it isn’t a deal-breaker. But it’s a good sign if they have priorexperience in your sector. Every niche has its own idiosyncrasies.
6. How Do They Report Their Results?The first answer you’re looking for is: they’ll connect your AdWords andAnalytics accounts and will always report your AdWords results in thecontext of your other traffic data.
Beyond that, you need to know what kind of reporting cycle they haveand the format in which they’ll deliver it. They are to provide what you need—weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, and anything in between!
7. What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Do TheyUse?Bad agencies talk about number of impressions, number of clicks, CTRs,
TopAdvert.net
or even the position of your ads. Good agencies talk about CPAs, volume ofconversions and conversion tracking, lifetime customer value, and profit.
How to Manage Campaigns Intelligently forProfit
WebSavvy, a trusted AdWords management firm based inMelbourne, Australia, uses its own proprietary system formeasuring its performance as an agency for every client,known as a SavvyNumberTM. By making a calculation basedon all the main metrics, it provides clients with an assessmentof the total profit their AdWords account has achieved eachmonth.
Overall profit should always be the primary measure of anyPPC agency’s abilities.
8. What Account Management System Do They Use?Agencies may hold back specifics in the early stages of their discussions withyou. That’s not unusual. The important thing is to know that they have asystem and that they don’t just manage accounts on an ad hoc basis.
9. Who Exactly Will Be Working on Your Account?Once the relationship begins, your account isn’t managed by a computer or acompany; it’s managed by one or more highly trained PPC experts. Don’t beafraid to ask for specifics about the people who will be physically working onyour account, and it’s even better if you can meet them in person.
WebSavvy, for instance, manages each client’s account using differentpeople who specialize in different aspects of the work. The technical expertslook after things like Excel pivot tables and AdWords scripts, whereas
TopAdvert.net
creative experts handle the writing of ad copy and the design of DisplayNetwork ads.
10. Is the Agency Certified?The agency should be at least AdWords Certified and part of the GooglePartners™ program. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this automaticallygives the agency legitimacy; certification requires passing a couple of fairlyeasy exams, as well as maintaining a minimum monthly AdWords spend of$10,000—which is a fairly low bar in the scheme of things.
However, if an agency doesn’t even have Google certification, you’redealing with amateurs.
11. What Does Your Gut Tell You?Don’t be horrified by this question. PPC isn’t an exact science. There’salways a level of artistry that goes into the equation. Similarly, choosing anagency can’t be made solely on cold, hard facts.
Continue to talk to the agency until you feel comfortable with yourchoice, whether it’s to hire them or look elsewhere. The right agency will talkthe talk, have good business sense, communicate without using impenetrablejargon, understand the important elements of your business, and have an in-depth knowledge of the AdWords machine.
If you have positive answers to the first of the above nine questions andyou instinctively feel that the agency understands you and your business andwhat you’re trying to achieve, you might just have found your winner.
TopAdvert.net
WHO WILL HAVE OWNERSHIP OF YOURACCOUNT?We’ve left this to the end in order to give it some extra emphasis.
No matter how professional and successful an agency appears to be, evenif they tick all the boxes, you must always retain ownership of your AdWordsaccount. It’s your business asset, and you’re granting an agency access toyour property.
Completely relinquishing control of your AdWords account to an agencyis like giving full control of your bank account to your bookkeeper—utterlyunwise and a recipe for disaster down the line.
How so?For one thing, if your relationship with the agency breaks down, you want
to be free to turn access of your account over to a new firm. You couldalways start a new account from scratch, but that’s a massive headache,especially since your account’s history is a factor—albeit a minor one—inyour Quality Score.
You may also be considering selling your business at some stage, inwhich case your AdWords account is a valuable asset to pass on to the newowner.
Even if you’re completely new to AdWords and don’t yet have anaccount, you need to open one in your name and grant the agency access. Donot have the agency create its own account on your behalf.
If you’re unsure what does and doesn’t qualify as account ownership,consider the following:
Can you access your account from http://google.com/adwords? If youcan’t, and the agency insists that you log in through its own custominterface, you probably only have partial access.
Do you have admin-level control of your AdWords account, includingthe ability to add and remove other people’s access to your account?This is essential.
Do you know your Account Customer ID (usually referred to as yourCID)? This is a ten-digit number that looks something like 123-456-7890.
Do you pay Google for your clicks, or do you pay through the agency?
TopAdvert.net
You should always pay Google directly, if possible, and not just to getthe loads of free air miles. When all is said and done, Googleconsiders the person or business who pays for the clicks to be theowner of the account and the data it contains.
YOUR QUICK ACTION SUMMARYHiring an agency is a natural next step in your AdWords management and thegrowth of your business. The right choice of firm can reduce your costs, cutyour time commitment, and greatly improve your results.
Shortlist one or more agencies based on trusted recommendations oryour own direct personal experience.
Research the websites of your shortlisted agencies to answer as manyof the ten key qualifying questions as you can.
Speak to the agencies directly to get answers to the remainingqualifying questions.
Be certain that you maintain admin-level ownership of your AdWordsaccount.
In the end, listen to your gut!
TopAdvert.net
N
Chapter 35
How Email Transforms ThoseExpensive Clicks into Long-Term,
Profitable Customers
o discussion about Google AdWords would be complete if I didn’tshow you how to turn that expensive split-second click into a long-term
relationship. When someone clicks on your ad, Google charges you 50 centsregardless of what happens next. If the guy leaves after five seconds, he’sgone, and you’ll probably never get him back without paying again.
Fifty cents for five seconds of someone’s attention—dang, that’s $600 anhour! Kind of depressing if you look at it that way.
On the other hand, if that person gives you his email address, you cancommunicate with him on a regular basis for little or no cost.
If you’re trying to sell a $1,000 product, which is easier to get from yourprospects: a $1,000 order or an email address?
The more complex your sales process, the more important it is to break itup into bite-sized steps. That is why the main Google AdWords page atwww.perrymarshall.com/google is an email opt-in page:
TopAdvert.net
Visitors can either opt-in to take our free cheat sheet and email course orleave. We figure if a person’s really interested in Google AdWords, she’ll atleast give her email address first.
This is better than only getting email addresses from people who buy thebook on the first visit. And it’s better than having only one shot at sellingpeople our services.
HOW TO PUT PERSONALITY AND PIZZAZZ INTOYOUR EMAIL MARKETINGIn a day when much of the manufacturing industry is downsizing, cuttingmanagement, laying off employees right and left, and moving in a panic toIndia and China, B&B Electronics in Ottawa, Illinois, has been settinggrowth records.
It had to hire more staff to handle its growing number of incomingcatalog orders and mounting list of willing buyers.
Most people would never think to utter the phrase “infectious
TopAdvert.net
personality” and “electronics manufacturing company” in the same breath,but B&B is both.
It refuses to surrender to the dull, corporate geek stereotype. Instead, ithas loads of fun with the stereotype. B&B regularly courts its growingcustomer list’s inboxes with witty, lively messages that celebrate the stale,geek image of the Dilbert-cubicle engineer. Marketing director Mike Fahriongraces customers with his regular “Mike’s Politically Incorrect Newsletter”rant column.
A techie’s girlfriend recently wrote B&B to thank it for turning theengineer stereotype on its head:
Hey Mike,
This is the hapless girlfriend who shares an email account with atechie who subscribes to your newsletter.
The amount of dry, poopey emails that we get in our inbox iscriminal, and it’s pathetic that the other electronic types areperpetrating the geek image that’s out there by sending thoseincredibly boring messages.
I mean, come on! “All you’ve ever wanted to learn about C++,Extensive Layer Management Plug-In for mental ray Pipeline”?BRUTAL!
Thank you for the sense of humor in your newsletters.
Mike, I think you need to start a “How to Write a Cheese-FreeNewsletter” course. I can think of many companies that need yourhelp!
Signed,
Disgruntled Dish
Does B&B owe its stellar growth in a stagnant industry all to its email?No, but it’s a vital ingredient of its carefully thought-out marketing strategy.
TopAdvert.net
Build a Business Around Your Uniqueness
Use email correctly, and your customers will stick aroundthree times longer. It’s the most personal online medium thereis. With it, you can sell to your customers again and again bybuilding trust and creating an entire business around your ownunique personality.
Mike understands this, which is why he originally hired Perry Marshall toghostwrite his “Politically Incorrect Newsletter.”
Whether you’re B&B Electronics or Martha Stewart, capturing a person’semail address turns a one-time click into an opportunity to build arelationship that can work for you again and again and again.
Buying Google traffic is only the first of many important steps in ourmarketing process. If we had to credit our own success to just one thing, itwould be the use of email and autoresponders.
POWER IN THE PERSONAL: SIX KEYS TO EMAILMARKETING SUCCESSRun-of-the-mill advertisers have little respect for the personal nature ofemail. They don’t realize how easy it is to turn off otherwise receptiveprospects to their message just by violating that.
You need to write to the person as one person. Unless the person you’rewriting to is part of a group where he or she personally knows each of theother members, then the last thing you want to do is write as though you’retalking to a crowd.
This is you, an individual, talking to your customer, an individual.
1. A “From” Field That Shows You’re a Real PersonSo if that’s the case for the actual text of your email messages, chances are
TopAdvert.net
that same principle will apply to other details in your email, such as your“from” field, for example. Consider the different impressions these “from”lines create:
Bill KastlWilliam KastlWilliam D. KastlNakatomi CorporationWilliam D. Kastl, Nakatomi CorporationNakatomi Sales DepartmentBill Kastl, Nakatomi Sales
You want to be warm and personal without looking like spam. This is achallenge because spammers are themselves always trying to make theirmessages look like they’re from some forgotten friend. The key is to saysomething that is so specific to readers’ particular interests they know nospammer would ever come up with it.
Pick a “from” field that your customers will understand, and stick with it.
2. A Provocative Subject LineThe most important thing about email is that its success or failure is all aboutcontext. Email subject lines work not because they follow standardcopywriting formulas but because they tap into what specific people areinterested in at a particular time.
If I showed you generic examples of email subject lines, it would bealmost impossible for them to not sound like spam.
So let’s take examples from a specific context that you understand:Google AdWords. Here are the subject lines of some of the emails I’ve sentout to my Google AdWords customer list:
When Google is NOT the Best Way to Get a CustomerAre Google Employees Spying on You?Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” and All That5 Insidious Lies About Selling on the WebFistfight at the Board of Directors Meeting
TopAdvert.net
These headlines do not assault the reader with cheesy-sounding promos,but they do hint very strongly at a story. They provoke curiosity rather thanscaring people off.
3. Everybody Loves a Good StoryB&B Electronics sells industrial communication hardware via catalog and theweb—a “boring” geek business if there ever were one. But when PerryMarshall writes its monthly newsletter, he turns that dull, geek image on itshead and interrupts a dreary day of engineering with wry humor.
The method? Storytelling.
Subject: ZIGBEE AND THE GEEKS’ REVENGE
Leslye was the girl who made my heart go pitter-patter in junior highschool.
I was always sure to take the long way to Social Studies, down thestairs to first floor, past her locker, then back up to second. Justcheckin’ up.
I was not the boy who made her heart go pitter-patter. She liked Sam,and maybe Rodney, too.
She wasn’t interested in me. And she never discovered that I likedher. It was my little secret.
Now maybe you didn’t run the sound system in Junior High like I did.Maybe you ran the film projector instead. Maybe you programmedApple II computers in BASIC and belonged to Chess Club.
Still, you and I were geeks, and the pretty girls took no notice of us.
But it’s 2009 now, and we geeks rule the world. We’re the peoplewho really know what’s going on. All the pretty boys and theirmaterial girls have viruses on their computers and they can’t functionwithout us. They’re at our mercy.
TopAdvert.net
And the latest Geek Revenge these days is . . .
ZigBee.
ZigBee is sort of like wireless instant messaging for sensors and smartdevices. You drop ZigBee nodes wherever you want, no cablesnecessary, and the more nodes you have, the more communicationpaths there are and the more reliable your system is . . .
It’s a little wonky. It doesn’t surrender to the stereotype that engineers aredull, lifeless geeks who only understand ones and zeros. No. It celebrates it.It turns it into the central message. It plays with the concept and has no end offun with it.
More importantly, though, while it celebrates the engineer stereotype, atthe same time it smashes it to pieces.
Engineers make buying decisions on emotion no differently than the restof us do.
Storytelling does work when marketing to them, no differently thanpeople in any other profession. Plus, every geek out there has suffered theheartache of unrequited love.
Every time B&B sends out an email blast, it gets emails from customerssaying, “Your newsletter is the only one I read every time it comes” and “Ialways look forward to getting emails from you guys.”
WHY WE CHOSE ENGINEERS AS AN EXAMPLEFOR EMAIL MARKETINGMost people stubbornly insist you can’t use storytelling and humor to sell to“logical” people like engineers and scientists. Most people also think thatbusiness-to-business marketing has to be dreadfully serious.
This campaign shoots holes in both beliefs because we’re doing both atthe same time here—using emotional, human-touch email marketing to sellbusiness-to-business products to engineers and scientists.
Does this work in other markets? You bet it does. Bryan Todd sold morebooks on learning Chinese and ignited more feedback and fan mail throughthis one message than anything else he sent out:
TopAdvert.net
Subject: WOMEN WHO HOLD HANDS; MEN WHO HUG
William kept brushing against me as we walked down the street.
Now I’m a guy like he is—and I’m straight, too—and I found this alittle unnerving. This was back during my first month living inmainland China, William was my new friend, and he had some habitsthat were awfully strange.
And when we’d go out walking somewhere, he always rubbed hisshoulders up against me. I kept thinking I was crowding him, so I’dmove to the right. Then he’d move right too, get closer and rub upagainst me again.
Sooner or later I figured out that this was just his way of beingfriendly. No, not “friendly,” just friendly—you know, normal, nice-guy friendly.
It’s that classic issue of personal space.
Every culture has different rules. My Chinese guy friends rubbedshoulders with each other, and with me, as they walked down thestreet.
Americans don’t do that, unless they’re in a relationship.
Younger women in China hold hands. Sometimes regardless of age.Arm in arm, hand in hand, they saunter together down the street.
Ah, but do they HUG you?
None of my friends ever did.
At least, not until I was with a couple of guys being visited by a ladypal of theirs from Shanghai . . .
This email was part of Bryan’s regular, timed email autoresponder seriesand didn’t even explicitly promote his book. But it got a reaction from
TopAdvert.net
people. Still does. It turns the spotlight in a sensitive yet eminently funnysubject.
It paints Bryan as completely and totally human. Not a peddler, not asalesman, not a pushy marketer, but as a regular guy whose experiences hismainland or Taiwan-based readers all share.
Most importantly, this approach trains people to read your emails byconvincing them that you’ve always got something interesting to say.
4. People Can’t Forget You When They Hear from YouOftenGet an autoresponder series going, and you can win the hearts of customersfor life:
We like five-day sequences. Five is a good number. Prime numberslike three, five, and seven are good.
After that five-day sequence is done, keep in touch at a slower rate. Inour “The Nine Great Lies of Sales & Marketing” e-course(www.PerryMarshall.com/9), messages continue every few days andtaper out for more than two years afterward. (You read it right: twoyears.)
Your unsubscribe rate should be between 3 to 10 percent. If it’s morethan that, your message isn’t matching your market. (If it’s less, youmay not be edgy enough.)
Want to squash refunds and returns? After people buy from you, sendthem a series of messages that show them how to use your productmore effectively and share features they might have missed.
When people complain that they’ve missed a day or two from you, it’sa sign that your content is good and that the spam filters are doingtheir job.
5. If You Violate the Expectation of Relevance, YouDamage Your ListLet’s say you’re a chiropractor and you’ve just launched a new herbal
TopAdvert.net
remedy. It’s a fantastic product, and you want to tell your customers. Whatshould you do? Should you blast your entire list with it?
Odds are, you could maximize your sales total for that day by doing so.But you’re going to pay a price. All the people on your list who aren’t
interested in herbal stuff are now going to be less responsive to everythingelse you do—even if they don’t unsubscribe. You’ve just taught them thatyou like to send out emails about stuff they’re not interested in.
Which means they’re that much less likely to read your next email.It’s a nasty mistake to treat everyone on your list the same unless they
really are. If you’ve got a back pain newsletter, it’s likely only a few peopleon that list would ever be interested in a knee pain newsletter.
The typical marketer will treat everyone the same and when he gets aback pain subscriber, he’ll also send knee pain stuff, neck pain stuff, herbalstuff, and environmental stuff, whatever.
The smart marketer will not. The smart marketer will have different listsfor each topic—different sublists.
So if you’re the chiropractor, you build an herbal sublist and then sell theherbal remedies just to those folks. That way, you maximize the value ofevery single list you have.
In email—and by extension, direct mail and other forms ofcommunication—that means that some of your prospects and customers don’tever want to hear from you (the bottom 5 to 10 percent). They, of course, donot matter. They can unsubscribe. But for the people who do:
Some of them (maybe 50 percent) would like to hear from you nomore than a few times a year.
Some of them (20 percent) would like to get your three-, five-, orseven-day autoresponder sequence for a few days, then only hearfrom you if something important happens.
Some (5 to 10 percent) would like to get all your newsletters, and ifyou have email lists for six different problems or products, they’llwant to be on every single one.
Some (1 to 2 percent) would like to hear from you every day.A tiny handful (less than 1 percent) would literally read ten emailsfrom you every day, if you were willing to send them.
TopAdvert.net
6. The Human Touch SellsDon’t hide behind your email. Use it to express more of yourself. You’re nota faceless corporation; you’re a person. Show that side of you, and peoplewill remember you. And buy. And tell others about you.
Express a personality that people can instantly recognize. This is freebranding. When you introduce new products or make changes in yourmarketing program or message, now you can attach those to a name—yourname or another person that your business is known for—and now your nameitself has even more meaning and credibility.
A MEDIUM THAT WILL NEVER GO AWAYWhen you communicate with your customers in multiple media rather thanjust one, it greatly solidifies your power in the marketplace.
There’s power for you in adding offline marketing to your arsenal.Communicating with your customers via direct mail takes you out of theephemeral, fly-by-night online world and plugs them into you by an entirelynew medium—a medium that is harder to break into but potentially morerewarding and enduring.
You can bank on the fact that the guy in the blue-gray uniform whocomes to your house every day is going to continue coming to your houseevery day pretty much as long as the earth keeps rotating on its axis (or aslong as politicians depend on him to deliver their campaign mailings).
A customer who finds you offline and goes to you online is usually morevaluable to you than a customer who knows you only online. In the sameway, a customer who knows you offline through physical mailings andphysical products as well as online is going to be a much more valuablecustomer than one who only knows you online.
OPT-INS: MORE THAN JUST AN EMAILADDRESS?Most opt-in pages only ask for a name and email address, but is that all theinformation you want? Many, if not most, businesses should also collectphysical addresses and fax numbers. Asking for this information, even
TopAdvert.net
requiring it, makes your database much more valuable.It also gives you a valuable communication medium besides just email.
What if you accidentally get on a spam blacklist, if your email service goesbelly up, or email suddenly gets a lot more expensive? It’s a mistake to relysolely on email.
THEY CAN KNOCK OFF YOUR PRODUCT, BUTTHEY CAN’T KNOCK OFF YOUAnybody can have a TV talk show, but there’s only one Oprah. Anybody canrant about the Democrats, but there’s only one Rush Limbaugh. Products canbe replicated and ideas can be stolen, but personalities cannot be duplicated.
Use email to express your own personality, and you’ll have a unique bondwith your customers that nobody can take from you.
Uncle Claude Sez
A person who desires to make an impression must stand out insome way. Being eccentric, being abnormal is not a distinctionto covet. But doing admirable things in a different way givesone a great advantage.
That’s why we have signed ads sometimes—to give them apersonal authority. A man is talking—a man who takes pride inhis accomplishments—not a “soulless corporation.” Wheneverpossible we introduce a personality into our ads. By making aman famous we make his product famous. When we claim an
TopAdvert.net
improvement, naming the man who made it adds effect.
TopAdvert.net
A
Chapter 36
So You Have a Killer Sales Machine.Now What?
The New Army of Next-GenerationMarketers
new breed of direct marketer is emerging: the one who’s learned fromthe first-hand experience of split testing rather than the second-hand
tutelage of gurus. And these marketers learn fast, too, because with Googleand the internet, the answers are all but instantaneous.
When you first join this new and elite crowd, you’ll find paybacks on a levelyou’d never have imagined. This can create unexpected problems,sometimes. Conrad Feagin, one of our coaching students, grew his businessfrom $7,000 a month to over $100,000 a month in 12 months. A couple ofmonths after that, I got this email from him:
Hey Perry,
I have been dealing with my merchant account provider for the lasttwo days. The Bad News: They are tying up some of our funds. TheGood News: We apparently “broke the bank,” so to speak. We wentfrom $103,000 in February to $175,000 and counting in March.Should end up around $190,000 or so. This is all a little scary.
TopAdvert.net
Hopefully I will not have any problems but, needless to say, I amapplying for another account at another provider. Thanks for all thehelp!
I love getting emails from people who have problems like this! It provesthat the commies haven’t killed the entrepreneurial spirit in America yet.
And this guy is no old-school copywriter. I doubt he even knew whatcopywriting was a few years ago. He got these enormous results by steadilytesting and improving his website.
Most niche marketers don’t have big enough numbers to easily test lots ofstuff, and they certainly don’t have a whole staff of bean counters to helpthem do it. So they rely heavily on gurus, “best practices,” and copywritingcourses and seminars.
And many of the best niche copywriters I know, people like John Carltonand the late Gary Hilbert, haven’t had tons of their stuff split-tested the waywe’re talking about today.
Their craft is really the result of lots of experience and intuition. Theseguys are good enough that most of the time they can crank out a winner thefirst time out.
Internet marketers who split-test are mastering their trade faster than ever,and the best marketers discover what works by a combination of old-schooltutelage and constant testing. The ultimate answer to every marketingquestion is: test it. Answers have never been so easily within your grasp.
Now, hang on because the power of this is even greater than it appears.It’s exponential.
THE IMPROVEMENTS DON’T JUST ADD UP—THEY MULTIPLY!How to Get Massive Compound Interest on Sales andProfitsIf internet marketing is some kind of magic show, I’m about to reveal thesecret trick of the whole thing. This is what’s truly important! Let’s say yoursales process looks like this:
TopAdvert.net
1. Your AdWords ad2. A landing page that offers a free video or white paper, a software
trial, or access to video materials in exchange for name and emailaddress
3. A sales letter4. Your order entry page or “action form”
We want to split-test each of these four steps. We not only test theAdWords ads, we split-test two different landing pages, two different salesletters, and two different order forms. What happens when we do this?
2 AdWords ads > 2 Opt-in Pages > 2 Sales Letters > 2 Order Forms
A challenging goal would be to double the effectiveness of each step.This is not impossible. And you don’t have to be a genius—you just need totry some sensible things.
So if we double the CTR of the AdWords ad, and the landing page, andthe sales letter, and the order form, our improvement is:
2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16X
A 16-fold improvement! Notice that the improvements multiply,cascading from beginning to end. Every improvement is magnified in the endresult.
If you go into a competitive market on Google—such as anythingcomputer related, weight loss, martial arts, web hosting—these are hyper-competitive categories that are very hard to win in.
It’s not unusual to start out losing money at a 4:1 ratio—i.e., for every $4you give Google, you only make $1 in gross revenue. Not fun.
But now you double each of these four steps—and you improve yournumbers by 16X—now you’re making $4 for every $1 you give Google.That’s pretty amazing. Continuous split testing unlocks the whole thing likethe key to a safe.
And like I said, let’s take a common scenario—a threefold improvementon AdWords, a threefold improvement in your opt-in page, a twofoldimprovement in your sales letter, and a mere 50 percent improvement in your
TopAdvert.net
order page (order pages are extremely sensitive to small changes—that salehangs by a thin thread!)—now you’ve got as much as a 27-time improvementin conversion over what you started with.
What you’ve done so far would have been very hard to do in the offlineworld—and ten years ago not a whole lot easier in the online world—becausethere was never a consistent, controllable source of traffic. Pay-per-clicktraffic, however, is fairly consistent, and it’s always 100 percent controllable.Within two to three months (as opposed to two to three years), you’ve testedseveral dozen variables and eliminated all but the best. You’ve polished asales process to the point where it delivers killer results.
You’re making a killer ROI on your sales process. And because you’re soeffective at turning visitors into paying customers, you can afford to paymore for your traffic than all your competitors. You’re getting unstoppable.
What now?Now, we go out with our growing war chest and buy all the traffic we can
get, using the Expanding Universe Theory of internet marketing.You’ve started out with Google AdWords and refined your marketing
machine. Now, you take the same messages and sales process, and roll outyour product in this order:
1. Google AdWords2. Facebook ads3. Search engine optimization4. Email promotions5. Affiliates6. Banner ads, second-tier PPCs like Bing7. “Regular” social media (Facebook status updates, Twitter)8. Press releases9. Direct mail
10. Print advertising
Most of these items are more expensive and less controllable thanGoogle, or they’re else they’re “one shot” opportunities. Get it right withGoogle first, where you have total control, then do email.
Then get help from affiliates. Don’t let any of these other things or peoplebe your guinea pig. If it works on Google AdWords first, then you can invest
TopAdvert.net
in these other things and be fairly certain it will work.I can’t overemphasize how powerful this is. Usually search engine traffic
represents only a tiny percentage of the people who are potential customersfor you.
When you roll out items 2 through 9, you may make 5 to 50 times asmuch money as you were making with AdWords. And remember, no longeris it necessary to risk more than a few hundred dollars on a marketingcampaign!
EXPANDING INTO OTHER MEDIA: PROFITINGFROM THE WINNER-TAKE-ALL PHENOMENONThe top dog has a disproportionate advantage over the others. The top threeplayers in any market get more business than all the rest combined. This istrue on Google as well, and there’s a snowball effect.
You enter a market, you start split-testing right away, and you use soundmarketing techniques, copywriting, and all of the tools at your disposal.
How fast can you go from zero to dominating a market? Answer: As fastas you can split-test.
AFFILIATES: THE MOMENTUM KICKS INAffiliates want to make money, and the Holy Grail for an affiliate is aprogram that consistently sends it very good dollars in exchange for itstraffic. You never want your affiliates to be blind test subjects for yourexperiments.
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate!Do your experiments with PPC traffic first. Then, verify it with email
promotions and inclusions in e-zines. Now that you have rock-solid numbers,take it to your affiliates.
Everybody’s trying to turn traffic into dollars. Affiliate marketing is whatMLM was in the early 1990s—a craze. (It also works better.)
You’ll never read about this in The Wall Street Journal, but anywherefrom 10 to 30 percent of all internet traffic is driven by affiliates. It’s aninvisible empire.
If you’re the guy with the content and the efficient sales process that spins
TopAdvert.net
off dollar bills, the world’s your oyster.Good affiliate relationships are extremely profitable. And more affiliates
breed more affiliates. The snowball effect multiplies, and you eventually hitthe point where you’re getting so much traffic you can’t make it stop.
HOW TO GRIND DOWN YOUR COMPETITION: AGOOGLE LESSON FROM HAN SOLOHarrison Ford, aka “Han Solo” and “Indiana Jones,” was working odd jobsback in the mid-1970s when he was asked by George Lucas to fill in doingreadings for the part of Han Solo for Star Wars.
Ford wasn’t even being considered for the part. Lucas actually had hiseye on Nick Nolte. Kurt Russell and Christopher Walken were primecandidates for the role as well.
But during these test readings, Lucas realized that the man perfect for therole was right under his nose. Harrison Ford was in the right place at the righttime. George Lucas decided he wanted him for the part, and the rest is StarWars history.
Did he just get lucky? Ford told Us Magazine back in 1981:
Right from the beginning, I believed that staying on course was whatcounted. The sheer process of attrition would wear others down.Them that stuck it out was them that won. That was my belief then. Itstill is.
According to Ford it was attrition that was the key to landing the bigroles. Celebrity status and million-dollar title roles came his way because hehung in there long after other actors had given up and gone back home.Movie history vindicated his decision.
Sometimes, the secret to success is grinding your competitors down,making incremental improvements over time until you’re ahead of
them.
TopAdvert.net
The secret to staying power, the secret to long-term sales numbers thatyour competitors will never beat, starts with always testing two ads againsteach other, two opt-in pages, two sales letters, deleting the losers, and beatingthe winners.
Split-Testing + Attrition = Success: Brian K. Wins byAttrition and Surprises Even Himself
By Bryan Todd
Some time back, a gentleman named Brian, who had a website thatsold custom gift products for children, joined our Personal AdWordsCoaching program. He and I had several productive one-on-onesessions together where we examined every element of his whole salesprocess and suggested changes and new approaches and small tweakshere and there.
A few weeks into the process, Brian was on the verge of giving up theghost simply because of the amount of work involved in keeping hiswhole operation running, along with his perception that there were nosignificant changes that he could ever make that would push this siteover the top into serious profitability.
Perry and I managed to talk him out of quitting.
Several months later, we had Brian on a group call again. He raised aninnocent question about conversion rates on websites, not realizing howfar out of everyone’s league he had actually progressed: “I’m averaging
TopAdvert.net
maybe a 5 percent clicks-to-sales ratio on my whole website. I feel likeI could do a lot better and wonder if anyone else on the call struggleswith this too.”
There was silence on the line.
“Uh, did you say 5 percent?” one of the callers asked.
“Yes, that’s right. Why? Is that kind of low?”
More silence. Perry piped up: “Five percent is really, really good!”
One in every 20 of Brian’s visitors was saying yes and buying hisphysical product from him. Just a few months before, Brian had beenaveraging less than 2 percent—one in 50. What made the difference?There was no point where Perry or Bryan or Howie gave some singleEureka-moment piece of insight that allowed Brian to make the leapfrom two up to five of every hundred visitors buying.
No, rather it was Brian’s very calculated, systematic, methodicalapproach of simply split-testing our new ideas against his existing oldones and keeping the one that worked better. He did this tirelessly overthe course of six months and more than doubled the response on hiswebsite.
To Brian, this seemed totally commonplace, simply because the processhad been so gradual. So unremarkable.
And it really is not rocket science. Of all the secrets that Brian andothers in our Mastermind Club learn, this is the least glamorous and yetthe single most profitable. You can do this with any sales process, andevery piece of it, and see gradual, unmistakable improvements overtime. The answer lies in split testing.
GOOGLE MAKES IT SO EASY
TopAdvert.net
What makes Google so elegant is how it enables you to do such painlesslyeasy, real-time split testing of different ads. Take an ad that’s getting a CTRof 1.1 percent, write a second one with smarter copy, run it live against thefirst one, and discover after a few days or weeks that you’ve now got a CTRof 1.4 percent. Then delete the old ad and try another copy idea to run againstthe new winner. That one gets you a CTR of 1.6 percent.
You repeat this process over and over again and find that you’reeventually, after several weeks or months, pushing CTRs as high as 2.5percent or better—maybe even close to 3 percent.
Are you patient enough to do this? I’d virtually guarantee that most—ifnot all—of your competitors are not. They’re eventually going to tire of splittesting, if they haven’t already, and conclude that what they’ve got going isadequate.
If you are patient enough, you can do what Brian did. He was ready tothrow in the towel in March but by September had doubled his traffic, simplythrough his patient, methodical, can-do mindset of never giving up whilemaking just the slightest incremental steps forward.
When you combine the power of split-testing with the force of attrition,you’ll come out the winner.
NOUVEAU SKIN CARE COMPANY GETS ANUNEXPECTED TURN IN ADVERTISINGJulie Brumlik, who sold an exotic skin care product using Google, happenedto have a huge advantage coming into the game: Her product had alreadyproven itself and she had been able to get celebrity endorsements, evenwinding up on Oprah’s show.
When she joined our coaching program, we advised her to use herkeywords in her ads—especially the headlines. This was based on goodexperience; she tried it and did fine. But split-testing new ideas all the timewill sometimes bring you new insights that even beat otherwise sound advice.
Julie followed her hunches and tried a different approach:
Wrinkles Instantly Vanishwww.celebritybeautysecret.com
TopAdvert.net
Oprah, Melanie, Goldie, Demi, Nora,Beyoncé, Marisa and Dr. Weil Agree2.0% CTR
As Seen on Oprahwww.celebritybeautysecret.comAge-Defying natural product linefor skin care. Erases wrinkles!2.2% CTR
Ten percent improvement. Not bad.Don’t miss this, though: Julie tried this new “As Seen on Oprah” headline
and it worked for some of her keywords. But not for all of them. The onlyway to know was to split-test in each ad group and see where it worked andwhere it didn’t.
It’s no exaggeration to say that every keyword literally represents adifferent market. Julie’s approach appealed to women who respect Oprah. Ina number of cases it worked but not in all. And eventually the Oprah Empirestepped in and demanded that she no longer use Oprah’s name in her ads.Julie had no choice but to comply.
Some keywords represented markets where the headline appeal to Oprahturned the trick. In other cases it was a flop. That’s the real world for you.
Feeding America Wins by Attrition and We Donate toHurricane Katrina Victims
By Bryan Todd
TopAdvert.net
Our business supports micro-enterprises and AIDS orphans inimpoverished countries from Haiti to Africa. Need knows no politicalboundaries.
One U.S. organization stood out from the crowd, however, and I partedwith a donation based solely on its brilliant marketing approach.Feeding America, formerly America’s Second Harvest, has aningeniously simple message: the organization purchases unboughtgroceries from supermarkets before the products reach expiration anddistributes them to the needy.
Its costs of doing this are ridiculously low, and it hits you with a clearand simple claim:
Every $1 you give provides four bags of groceries!
How could you not give to a cause like this, when you know yourdollar is stretching that far?
I gave once and continued to receive mailings. It doesn’t just sendplain, dreary letters begging for money every time. Actually, no twomailings ever look alike.
Each one comes in a different shape and size. One is a large, lumpy,clear package. Another is a postmarked lunch sack. Still another is afull-color brochure on how to volunteer with the needy in your localcommunity.
TopAdvert.net
Always full of pictures, always interesting, always fresh. AtThanksgiving in November, it wowed me with a matching promotionoffer to buy 300 Thanksgiving meals for just $20.
How could I not give?
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Louisiana Gulf Coast in late2005, we were bombarded left and right with requests from all acrossthe United States to donate.
Even though I had prioritized giving to third-world causes, sureenough, a letter came—from America’s Second Harvest—saying that itwas in the thick of feeding hurricane victims through its program, andwould I please contribute?
It was a no-brainer. By this time, the ASH letters were a welcome andregular part of every week, and I trusted them. My first gift to SecondHarvest had been small, but it kept at me. So when disaster struck andit was there again like a familiar visitor, I gave big this time.
The people behind the ASH effort are no slackers. They understand thatyou win by attrition. Others drop off the radar, but you stand strong—and you win. You always win. This is true with Google; this is truewith any marketing effort you put forth.
Harrison Ford landed the part of Han Solo through attrition and a fairshare of luck. For you it doesn’t need to be luck at all. You’ve gotGoogle’s outstanding system for split testing and the flow of trafficfrom all over the world to vet your sales funnel.
Uncle Claude Sez
TopAdvert.net
Advertising and merchandising become exact sciences. Every course ischarted. The compass of accurate knowledge directs the shortest, safest,cheapest course to any destination. We learn the principles and provethem by repeated tests. . . . We compare one way with many others,backward and forward, and record the results.
When one method invariably proves best, that method becomes a fixedprinciple. . . . One ad compared to another, one method with another.Headlines, settings, sizes, arguments, and pictures are compared. . . . Sono guesswork is permitted.
. . . We test everything pertaining to advertising. We answer nearlyevery possible question by multitudinous traced returns. Some thingswe learn in this way apply only to particular lines. . . . Others apply toall lines. They become fundamentals for advertising in general. Theyare universally applied. No wise advertiser will ever depart from thoseunvarying laws.
TopAdvert.net
T
Chapter 37
Signature Victories
The measure of the momentIn a difference of degree
Just one little victoryA spirit breaking free
One little victoryThe greatest act can be
One little victory
—One Little Victory by Neil Peart
he best daily ritual I’ve picked up in recent years has been writing onelittle victory, no matter how tiny, in my little black Moleskine®
notebook. Every day. Even if you only have enough energy in the morning towrite one sentence, remember something positive and write it. It’s the 60-second habit that can change your life. It’s a tiny hinge that swings big doors.
If I’ve learned anything from writing copy, it’s that every single personlives in some kind of story. Stories are actually the thing that defines anycommunity or culture—even more so than the language those stories are toldin.
You might be surprised to find out how different people’s stories can be.In the past, we’ve used Facebook and social media to profile customerstories.
TopAdvert.net
We ran some ads for a coffee product. Here are the favorite movies forthe people who clicked on the coffee ads:
1. The Notebook2. Dirty Dancing3. Juno4. Fight Club5. The Princess Bride
We also ran ads for an astronomy website. Here are the favorite moviesfor people who clicked on the astronomy ads:
1. Star Wars2. Fight Club3. The Lord of the Rings4. The Dark Knight5. Gladiator
You’ll notice that the only movie in common is Fight Club. (I’m not surewhy.) Except for that one, all the coffee lovers’ movies are chick flicks andall the astronomy lovers’ movies are combat films.
TopAdvert.net
This shows you that coffee fans and astronomy fans live in entirelydifferent stories. Up-and-coming ninja marketers will give this some morethought. There’s an insight in what I just told you that’s worth about 50 timeswhat you paid for this book.
Hint: If you know what story your customers live in, you can sell to themwith ease.
I don’t know exactly what story you live in, though I know for most ofmy customers, Lord of the Rings is probably closer to the sweet spot thanPrincess Bride. But there is one thing I know for certain: You want to makeyour story better.
Stories run deep. If you want to change the story you’ve been in to thestory you want to be in, it’s best to just assume it’s going to take everythingyou’ve got. If there’s a resource that is capable of improving your story, youshould avail yourself of it.
Examples of stories that people live in:
It’s a good thing I showed up and fixed everything because otherwisethose people would’ve screwed everything up.
Every time we’re about to sit down to a romantic dinner, he gets anemergency call on his cell phone and has to go to the ER.
I’m always on the outside looking in.
Politicians are constantly taking advantage of us, and it just getsworse all the time.
The world is going to hell in a hand basket.
Every time I look for a parking space, someone pulls out and thespace opens up for me.
Whenever things are looking completely impossible, some opportunityopens up and things work out in the end.
Whenever I’m on the cusp of a huge victory, something bad happensand snatches my Big Win away, and I go home terribly disappointed.
TopAdvert.net
I never allow myself to be in a position where I can be vulnerable. Iam 100 percent self-reliant.
I never allow myself to be in a position where I have to depend onmyself. I rely on [him] [her] to keep me on track.
Even in the darkest journey, I fear no evil.
I always learn the hard way.
I’m teachable, and I always learn from other people’s experience.
When I’m pressing against hard challenges, things might seemhopeless for months, sometimes years. But eventually I achieve abreakthrough, and things suddenly, dramatically improve.
All this stuff is self-talk. It’s über-powerful. The difference betweenlosers and champions is losers believe they have no control over their lives.They’ve acquired learned helplessness. Winners have acquired the belief thatthey have some ability to affect outcomes, no matter how indirect theiractions.
Self-talk is reinforcing, and people stay stuck in whatever self-talkthey’ve been embracing. Telling yourself your own sad story may becomforting, but it keeps you in prison.
Sixty seconds of positive reflection every day changes your self-talk onesentence at a time, one day at a time. If you eat one bowl of ice cream, itmakes no difference in your life. If you eat a bowl of ice cream every singlenight before you go to bed, you gain 25 pounds in ten years. If you jump on atrampoline for five minutes every single day, you’re still in good shape at age70.
And if you focus on what’s good about your story every single day, youbuild a reservoir of positive pattern recognition. That’s the micro-pattern: 60seconds to change your life. Let’s talk about the macro.
MEGA-VICTORIESI did something the other day that I’d like you to do, too. I made a list of
TopAdvert.net
about a dozen signature victories in my own life—events that weretremendously positive. Allow me to share just one.
Signature victory: Spent four years in the trenches at a startup company,worked my buns off, company got sold for $18 million. Cashed in my stockoptions, left the company, started a business.
This one move wiped out our debt in one fell swoop with money to spare.Gave the Marshall family our first Christmas where we could buy whateverwe wanted to buy for each other. Didn’t make us “rich” by any means, but itwas the first giant gulp of financial oxygen. Felt r-e-a-l good.
I still think about that a lot. I’ve had much bigger victories since then, butthat was a signature victory—one of those defining moments in life that hasso much flavor and impact that it shapes the way you think about everythingafter.
The time leading up to it was extremely turbulent, and there was always afeeling of careening nearly out of control. Yet deep down, I had this quietsense of inner calm—the sense that it would turn out OK in the end.
When all the pieces came together, I had an overwhelming sensation ofbeing set free. Now, I can finally do what I really want to do in my life. I canpursue my own purposes instead of somebody else’s. Perry, you’ve beenwaiting for this chance. Ball and chain just cut off your leg. On your mark . .. get set . . . THE PISTOL FIRES, and a new race has begun. Go man, go, go,go.
No matter what happens to me, I have that signature victory under mybelt. Nothing that happens tomorrow can take it away from me. Nothing thathappens to you tomorrow can take your signature victories away from you.
Focus on them. Relish them. Savor them. Even the small ones.I don’t know where you are in your journey. Maybe you’re like me
and you started your business ten years ago. You’re reading this book to addsome advertising mojo to an already-running business. Maybe you work at ajob, and this book is your reading assignment.
Maybe your entire brand-new business hinges on how well your Googlecampaigns work.
Wherever you are in your story, I believe what you do is importantbecause without marketers, nobody knows about all the great products andservices that smart people are constantly developing. I believe you can makeyour story bigger and better.
TopAdvert.net
Carpe Diem—Seize the Day!—Perry Marshall
TopAdvert.net
About the Authors
Perry Marshall
Perry Marshall is one of the world’s most expensive and sought-afterbusiness consultants. Clients seek his ability to integrate engineering, sales,art, and psychology.
He launched two movements in modern marketing. His Google AdWordsbooks laid the foundations for the $100 billion pay-per-click industry, andtechniques he pioneered are standard best practices.
More recently, he’s turned “80/20” into a verb. Not just a fact about yourbusiness, 80/20 is action you take on your business. It’s the central lever forevery great strategy. His book 80/20 Sales and Marketing is mandatoryreading in many growing companies. His books are course material in severalbusiness schools.
Works also include bestseller Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising(Entrepreneur Press, 3rd Edition 2017), Evolution 2.0: Breaking theDeadlock Between Darwin and Design (BenBella, 2015), and IndustrialEthernet (ISA, 3rd Edition 2017).
TopAdvert.net
Bryan Todd
Bryan Todd is a writer and web traffic specialist in Lincoln, Nebraska. He’sworked in both Europe and Asia and has spent most of his career teaching—from foreign languages and world history to advanced testing methods for theinternet. He has worked with clients in dozens of industries from health careand book publishing to manufacturing and computer software.
Mike Rhodes
Mike Rhodes is an AdWords evangelist. As a popular speaker, digitalstrategist, and CEO of WebSavvy.com.au and AgencySavvy.com, he lovesnothing more than to dive into the Google machine, pull it apart, deeplyunderstand it, and share that knowledge with the world.
He’s been asked by Google to consult on how to improve AdWords,worked directly on over 1,000 accounts, and has taught thousands of businessowners and marketing managers how to use the power of this tool to growtheir business.
Mike founded WebSavvy in 2006 to offer a “done for you” service tothose businesses that didn’t want to learn but just wanted to grow theirbusinesses and their profits. His team manages tens of millions of dollars in
TopAdvert.net
ad spending and guarantees their results.A devoted dad and husband, he lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his
wife and two daughters.
TopAdvert.net
C
Quick-Reference AdWords Glossary
onfused by a word or phrase or acronym you’ve come across? Find itdefined and explained here.
Above the fold: The part of a webpage in the browser window readily visiblewhen it first loads, before the user scrolls further down.
Ad group: A collection of one or more ads triggered by a specific set ofkeyword searches.
Ad Rank: The position of an ad on the results page compared to otheradvertisers. Equals your bid for that keyword multiplied by the matchedkeyword’s Quality Score.
AdSense: The program where a website owner displays Google ads on his orher site and receives a commission when visitors click on the ads. SeeGDN.
App Ad: Any of a wide range of ad types that introduce new users to yourapp or show your ads inside other apps.
Audience: A compiled list of users who have visited your site or taken somespecified action with you, which you can target again with advertising.See remarketing.
Automatic placement: A domain or webpage in the Display Network whereGoogle has chosen to show your ad.
Average CPC: The average amount that Google has actually charged you foryour clicks.
TopAdvert.net
Average position: A number representing the average of where your adsdisplayed compared to other advertisers for the date range you’veselected. The lower the number, the higher on the page your adsdisplayed.
Ban: The permanent suspension of an entire account due to policy or terms ofservice violations.
Broad match: A keyword or phrase submitted without quotes or brackets.Triggers ads to show any time users type in close variations, relatedwords, or synonyms.
Bumper Ad: A six-second YouTube ad that cannot be skipped.
Campaign: A collection of ad groups that all share the same daily budget,network, and geographic settings.
Click to Call: A mobile device feature where clicking on an ad or on a phonenumber will result in a call to the business at the number listed.
Clickthrough rate (CTR): A percentage representing the number of clicksyou got on an ad or keyword (or group of ads or keywords), divided bythe total number of impressions received.
Contextual targeting: This allows you to target your ads to people based onthe websites and pages they’re reading. The assumption being that ifthey’re reading content directly related to the products and services yousell, then they ought to be more likely to click your ad.
Conversion: Any measured desired action (opt-in, purchase, signup, phonecall) a customer or prospect takes with you after the initial click.
Conversion rate: A percentage representing the number of actions (opt-ins,purchases, signups, phone calls) your visitors or prospects have taken,divided by your number of clicks.
Coverage: See IS.
CPA: Cost per action, also called cost per conversion. The average amountyou pay each time a user takes a desired action (opt-in, purchase, signup,phone call).
CPC: Cost per click. The average amount you pay each time a user clicks on
TopAdvert.net
your ad.
CPM: Cost per thousand impressions. The average amount you pay eachtime Google displays your ad to users 1,000 times.
CTR: See clickthrough rate.
Daily Budget: A user campaign setting that dictates the maximum amount ofmoney that Google will charge you for clicks to that campaign on a singlecalendar day. Once this has been spent for the day, Google will stopdisplaying your ads.
DFSA: Demographic Bids for Search Ads. A method of adjusting bidsbased on the searcher’s age or gender.
Disapproval: Google’s official rejection of a single ad from showing due toad content, URL, or landing page policy violations.
Display Grid: Mike Rhodes’s system for visualizing the multiple ways aDisplay ad can be shown.
Display URL: The web address users see displayed in your ad. See Path.
Exact match: A keyword or phrase submitted with straight [ ] brackets.Triggers ads to show any time users type in only this word or phraseverbatim.
Final URL: The web address users are routed to first when clicking on yourad. Can be a tracking link or a final landing page destination.
GCO: Google Conversion Optimizer. The system where you indicate a targetcost per conversion you want to pay, and Google optimizes yourplacement and CPCs to bring you conversions at or below that amount.
GDN: Google Display Network, formerly called the Content Network. Thevast network of sites on the internet that display Google ads.
Gmail: Google’s email platform on which advertisers can show a range ofads.
Impressions: The exact number of times your ad was displayed whensomeone searched on your targeted keyword (or visited a page on theDisplay Network that you targeted).
TopAdvert.net
InStream: An ad format that allows “pre-roll” videos to be shown onYouTube videos.
IS: Impression share. A percentage representing the number of times your adwas displayed, divided by the total number of times someone searched onyour targeted keyword (or visited a page on the Display Network that youtargeted).
Jet stream: A state ads reach when they get high CTRs and Google showsthem all over the internet, including pages unrelated to the subject of thead or to keywords or themes you originally targeted.
Landing page: The first page on your website a user sees after clicking yourad.
Lightbox: An ad format that allows links and videos to be shown across theDisplay Network.
Managed placement: A domain or a webpage in the Display Network thatyou’ve specifically chosen to have your ad shown on.
Max CPC: Maximum cost per click. A user setting where you dictate toGoogle the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for any single click.
Modified broad match: A keyword or phrase submitted with a plus sign +directly before one or more of the words in the phrase. Triggers ads toshow any time a user’s search query includes each of the words markedby the plus sign.
Navigation: Links to other areas of content on your site.
Negative keyword: A custom keyword that tells Google not to display an adwhenever that word or phrase is typed in or used.
Organic: Free, unpaid listings on search engines such as Google or Bing. SeeSEO.
Path: Additional information you can add to your Display URL to show thesearcher that you’re highly relevant to their particular search.
Pay per click: The form of advertising where advertisers pay only when auser clicks on an ad or link, rather than paying per impression or peraction.
TopAdvert.net
Peel and stick: A method for increasing CTR or conversion rate by pausingor deleting an underperforming keyword (or group of keywords) in itscurrent ad group and creating a new ad group for it with one or more adsbetter matched to it.
Phrase match: A keyword or phrase submitted with straight quotes (“ “).Triggers ads to show any time users type in a search query that includesthis exact word or phrase verbatim.
PLA: Product Listing Ad. See shopping ad.
PPC: See pay per click.
Proof: Testimonials, images, screenshots, endorsements, or any other placedfeatures on your page that give you credibility in your market (andpromote sales).
QS: Quality Score. Google’s 1 to 10 measurement of how good an“experience” users will have if they see your ad on a page. A null (“—“)QS means Google doesn’t yet have enough data to decide on a score.
Remarketing: Also called “retargeting.” The strategy of showing ads on sitesaround the Display Network to users who have already visited your siteor taken some action with you.
RLSA: Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. A way of combining yourSearch campaigns with remarketing so you can bid differently forreturning visitors.
Script: A JavaScript “program” that runs inside your AdWords account andautomates certain tasks.
SEO: Search engine optimization. The strategy of optimizing websites andpages to rank higher in Google’s organic or “free” listings. See organic.
Shopping Ad: An ad on Google Search (or other channels) that displays theimage, price, and description of one of your ecommerce products.
Slap: A temporary suspension, either 1) of an ad group, campaign or accountdue to terms of service violations, or 2) of specific keywords fromtriggering ads to show, due to low Quality Score.
Split test: A setup where two or more different ads (or landing pages, email
TopAdvert.net
messages, etc.) are rotated to show over the same general time period topeople searching on a specific keyword or group of keywords.
SPN: Search Partner Network. The network of other search engine,information, and ecommerce sites (e.g., Amazon, Ask.com) whereGoogle displays ads in response to a search query. Known internally atGoogle as the Adsense for Search Network, or AFS.
Statistical significance: The state of having enough data over time to trustthe patterns you’re seeing.
Topic targeting: The system where Google shows your ads based on topicsor categories you’ve chosen rather than specific keywords or websites.
USP: Unique selling proposition, also called value proposition. The featuresof your product, service, sales process, customer experience, or guaranteethat make you unlike any other seller in your market.
Video Discovery: An ad format that allows ads to be shown in various placesinside YouTube.
YouTube: Google’s channel for showing videos and video ads.
TopAdvert.net
Index
“In this digital publication the page numbers have been removed from theindex. Please use the search function of your e-Reading device to locate theterms listed.”
Aaccount expansionaccuracyad editingad extensionsAd Galleryad groupsad positionAd PreviewAd Rankad relevancead rotationad schedulingad testing. See testingad writing. See writing Google adsads, disapproved. See also editorial guidelinesAdSense for Search (AFS)ad-to-landing page relevanceAducationadvanced campaignsadvertiser claims
TopAdvert.net
AdWords EditorAdWords ExperimentsAdWords ScriptsAdWords-specific reportsaffiliatesaffinity targetingAFS (AdSense for Search)agencies, hiringAll Traffic reportAmerica’s Second Harvest campaign. See also Feeding AmericaAnalytics remarketingapp extensionsAsk.comattributionattritionAuction Insightsauditing campaignsautomated biddingAutomated Rulesautomatic extensions
Bbehavioral targetingbenefitsbid adjustmentsbid stackingbid testingbidding strategiesblind testingbrand keywordsbrandingbroad match searches. See also keyword matchingbuyers
Ccall extensions
TopAdvert.net
call-only adscall-only campaignscall-on-site callscallout extensionscalls to actioncampaign management
AdWords Editor forauditing and diagnosing problemsbenefit of monitoring campaignscheck phase inexpanding accountsoptimizing accountsreviewing settingsof Shopping campaignstesting new campaign structures
campaign settingscheckout shoppersclarityclickthrough rate (CTR)code, installingcomparison searcherscompetition, differentiating fromcompetitor keywordscompetitors’ impression share. See also impression sharecontextual targetingconversion, pay perconversion codeconversion costsconversion tracking
aboutaccuracy inassigning value to goalschecking regularlyconnecting to Analytics accountconversion types andconversion values in
TopAdvert.net
counting conversionsmacro vs. micro conversionssetting upthank-you pages andvalue ofYouTube advertising
conversions, view-throughcost per action (CPA)cost per click (CPC)cost per conversioncost per customercost per thousand impressions (CPM)CTR (clickthrough rate)customer match optioncustomer storiescustomers, attracting
DData Feed Watchdata feedsDeep 80/20. See also 80/20 rulediagnosing problems in campaignsdifferentiating from competitiondisapproved ads. See also editorial guidelinesdiscountsDisplay GridDisplay Network. See Google Display NetworkDisplay Plannerdisqualifier lead generation magnetsdomain namesdotcom bubbledownload trackingdynamic remarketingDynamic Search Ads (DSAs)dynamic sitelink extensionsdynamic structured snippets
TopAdvert.net
EeBayecommerce sitesECPC (enhanced cost per click)editing adseditorial guidelines. See also disapproved ads80/20 Principle, The (Koch)80/20 rule
applyingdefinitioninevitable consequence oflong tail andperfectionism andpower ofrepeating pattern ofrules of thumb abouttroubleshooting accounts and
80/20 surveysemail marketingenhanced cost per click (ECPC)enhanced sitelinksexact match impression share. See also impression shareexact match searches. See also keyword matchingexpanding accountsExperiments
Ffeaturesfeed optimizationFeeding Americafixed fee payment modelfree offersfrequency capping
GGA (Google Analytics). See also conversion tracking
TopAdvert.net
GDN. See Google Display Networkgeographic performanceGmail adsGMC (Google Merchant Center) accountsGoldilocks principleGoogle AdWord’s rise to dominationGoogle Analytics (GA). See also conversion trackingGoogle Display Network (GDN)
aboutad group targeting options inad types for testingbenefits ofbidding andcreating ads incustomer match featurefree offers andGmail ads andlanding pages andQuality Score onrules for image ads inSearch Network vs.search networks andtargeting users intesting ads inYouTube campaigns and
Google Merchant Center (GMC) accountsGoogle ShoppingGoogle slapGoogle Tag Manager (GTM)Google tracking numbersgraphic designers
HheadlinesHiPPO selectionHopkins, Claude
TopAdvert.net
Iidea marketability testingideal customersimage adsimpression shareinformational searchersin-market targetingin-store shoppersinterest levels of site visitorsinterest targetinginterruption marketing
KKeel, Jonkeyword listskeyword matchingKeyword Plannerkeyword researchkeyword targetingkeyword toolskeywords
adding in bulkcompetitorlongtailnegative95/5 keyword patternnon-brandnumber per ad groupsonline searchers andoptimizingpitfalls withQuality Score andresearchingtargeted ad groups and
keyword-to-ad relevanceKoch, Richard
TopAdvert.net
Llanding pages
checking regularlycustomized for remarketing campaignsDisplay Network andQuality Score andrelevance oftesting with ExperimentsYouTube and
Langley, Samuel Pierpontlead generationlistening to your marketlocation extensionslong tailLong Tail, The (Anderson)
Mmacro conversionsmanaged placement. See also placementsmanual bidsmarket testingmaximized clicksmeasuring resultsmessage extensionsmicro conversionsMicrosoft Excelmobile-friendlinessmodified broad match searches
Nneeds, unmet. See also niche domination strategiesnegative keywordsnetwork effectniche domination strategies90/10 rule95/5 keyword pattern
TopAdvert.net
non-brand keywordsNouveau Skin Care Company campaign
OObservations setting in RLSAoffersoffline conversionsonline searchersopt-in pagesoutsourcing
PPareto Principle. See 80/20 rulepay per conversionpayment modelspeel and stickpercentage of spend payment modelsperfectionismperformance-based payment modelphrase match searches. See also keyword matchingplacementsPLAs (Product Listing Ads)point-of-difference benefitsposition, adPPC agenciespreviewing adsprice extensionsprivacy policiesProduct Listing Ads (PLAs)
QQuality Score
aboutbroad match searches andCTR andon Display Network
TopAdvert.net
factors contributing tofinding and assessing your keyword scoresimprovingkeywords andlanding pages andmyths aboutpurpose ofrelevance and
RReality in Advertising (Reeves)relevance
adad-to-landing pageemail marketingkeyword-to-adlanding page
remarketing adsremarketing audiencesremarketing campaignsremarketing coderemarketing gridremarketing lists for search ads (RLSA)reportsresponsive adsresults measurementreturn on ad spend (ROAS) targetingreview extensionsRLSA (remarketing lists for search ads)rotating ads
Sscent, maintaining. See also ad-to-landing page relevancescheduling adsscriptsSearch Network
TopAdvert.net
Search Partners NetworkSearch Query Reportsself-talkseller rating extensionsShopping AdsShopping Campaignssignature victoriessimilar audiences targetingsitelink extensionsSmart Biddingsplit testingstanding outStar Principlestarting bidsstoriesstreet selectionstructured snippetssubject lines in emailssub-nichessuccessesSwiss Army Knife Formula
Ttarget cost per acquisitiontarget marketstarget outranking sharetarget return on ad spend (ROAS)target search page locationtargeted devicestargeting
affinitybehavioralcontextualwith Display Networkinterestkeyword
TopAdvert.net
managed placementin-marketsimilar audiencestopicYouTube
Targeting (advanced) setting in RLSAtestimonialstesting. See also Google Display Network with AdWords Experiments
blind testingHiPPO selectionidea marketability testingsplit testingstreet selectiontesting the forest firstfor tweaking campaignsURL testingvenues forWright brothers testing analogy
thank-you pagestime spent on site by visitorstopic targetingtraffic generationtransparencytroubleshooting campaignstrustworthiness
Uunique selling proposition (USP)unmet needs. See also niche domination strategiesupsellingURL Builder toolURLsUSP (unique selling proposition)
Vvictories
TopAdvert.net
view-through conversions. See also conversion trackingvisitors, attracting
Wwindow shoppersWright brotherswriting Google ads. See also testing
ad textdisapproved ads andeditorial guidelinesfocusing adsGoldilocks principle inheadlinesprior to beginningremarketing adsSwiss Army Knife Formula for
YYahoo! AuctionsYouTube advertisingYouTube remarketing
TopAdvert.net
Thank You for Purchasing theUltimate Guide to Google AdWords, 5th
Edition!Get a stream of updates and valuable resources (conservatively valuedat $85) that will help you get more clicks from Google for less money,convert more visitors to buyers, and make your online business moreeffective than ever before.
Here’s what you get:
Updates on Google’s ever-changing system
Special reports, audios and videos, including videos for all five“Chisel Your Way In” strategies: YouTube advertising,advanced Display Network strategies, Building Killer USPs, theSwiss Army Knife Formula for Bionic Google Ads, and SavvyMarket Selection.
Links to dozens of resources and tutorials for getting all youronline bases covered: registering a domain name, setting up awebsite, selecting an email service, choosing a shopping cartservice, finding products to sell, and starting up your GoogleAdwords account.
Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins.
Special report on “Personality in Marketing”—how to make youand your unique approach to everything a key element of yourbusiness Unique Selling Proposition.
TopAdvert.net
TopAdvert.net
Entrepreneur Press, PublisherCover Design: Andrew WelyczkoProduction and Composition: Eliot House Productions
© 2016 by Entrepreneur Media, Inc.All rights reserved.Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the1976 United States Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests forpermission or further information should be addressed to the Business Products Division, EntrepreneurMedia Inc.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subjectmatter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal,accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, theservices of a competent professional person should be sought.
ebook ISBN: 978-1-61308-323-9
TopAdvert.net
W
Preface
Wait! Before You Read This Book . . .
hether you are a small local business with three employees or amajor player with over 100, the strategies you’re about to learnhave the potential to exponentially increase your business.
Our goal with this book is not to help you get a small bump and increaseyour business by 10 percent or 20 percent—not even close. What we areexcited about is the potential for you to double, or potentially triple, yourbusiness (in a relatively short period of time, if you choose).
While that may sound like a bold goal, the strategies you’ll learn in thisbook have the potential to be by far the greatest source of leads you’ve everreceived on a continual basis. These strategies are not fads that might worktoday but not tomorrow. These are real-world, proven strategies that workright now and will continue to for many years to come.
The only difference between you and other local businesses that havebeen using these strategies successfully (some to the tune of millions ofdollars, year after year) is that these other businesses have been educated (ormaybe they hired someone who was educated) on how to implement thesestrategies the right way.
If you’ve heard someone talk about their experience doing something likeGoogle AdWords, keep in mind that just because it may not have worked forthem doesn’t mean the strategy doesn’t work. In fact, we know thatthousands of local businesses are making huge profits right now with GoogleAdWords and other strategies you’ll learn in this book.
So chances are, if someone you know has tried Google AdWords andfailed, the reason is probably that they were not armed with the informationand tools that they needed to make it work (the information you’re about to
TopAdvert.net
learn in this book).You’ll also notice that search engine optimization (SEO) is Chapter 27. It
is not Chapter 1. There is a very definite reason we did this. Most people startwith SEO, but you should end with SEO. Do not start with SEO. Why?Because SEO takes longer to achieve than almost anything else in this book,and you need pay-per-click first before you can define your SEO goals.
The bottom line is this, if you don’t implement these strategies, thensomeone else in your market will . . . which means they will be gettingbusiness you should have had.
If you’re doing well right now without using these strategies, that’s great,because it means you’ll be doing even better when you do implement them!
If you’re serious and ready to dramatically grow your business (not just a10 percent or 20 percent bump), then you are reading the right book.
The first thing to do is get the online bonus material and resources that gowith this book at www.UltimateLocalBook.com. There you’ll also find acollection of supplemental material that we consider vital to this book, andyou’ll also get real-time notifications from us whenever there are any changeswith Google for local businesses and/or other topics covered
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 1
Why 95 Percent of Local BusinessesAre Failing Miserably with Their
Marketingby Talor Zamir
recently spoke with a lawyer who used to do over a million dollars a yearin business. But my conversation began when he said:
You have to help me. These young lawyers out of law school whoknow how to do this internet marketing thing are taking all mybusiness, and my business has been almost cut in half.
He went on to tell me how he went from over a million dollars a year toaround $600,000. That’s no small drop in revenue, and he still had the sameoverhead, so it pretty much wiped out his profits.
This lawyer had advertised in Yellow Pages for the past ten years or soand had been running the same ad the whole time. The only difference wasthat he recently started taking out bigger ads (and paying a lot more) than heused to, but the leads have not been rolling in anymore. As a result of the bigdrop in leads, revenue, and profits, he got to the point where he could barelyafford to do any type of marketing. Death Spiral.
Do you feel like you’ve heard this story before? Have you experiencedsomething similar with your local business? It’s not uncommon forestablished local businesses to find themselves in a similar situation.
TopAdvert.net
Alternatively, there are many local businesses opening their doors for thefirst time. Opening a local business is no small undertaking, and most peopledon’t realize all that goes into it. It means signing a long-term commerciallease, furnishing the place, hiring and training employees, registering thebusiness, getting insurance, and on and on. Depending on what kind ofbusiness you’re in, you could easily sink $100,000 before you even openyour doors!
WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU IN LAW (ORANY PROFESSIONAL) SCHOOLAfter you open your doors, you may ask, “Where are the clients? Why aren’tnew clients coming in my door?”
The cold, hard truth is you can be the bestlawyer/dentist/plumber/chiropractor/etc. in the world, but if you don’t havenew leads coming in, then you’ll be the best brokelawyer/dentist/plumber/chiropractor/etc. nobody ever heard of.
Unfortunately, they probably didn’t teach you any marketing in school,and that’s a shame, because it is the most important part of your business.Our goal with this book is to show you the most effective strategies formarketing your local business.
WHAT YOU WILL NOT LEARN IN THIS BOOKThis book is not about branding. We’re not interested in any form ofmarketing where there is no way to measure your ROI (return on investment)and how effective your marketing efforts are.
Not to say that branding does not have its place and does not work. Butbranding typically costs millions of dollars, so you better have a really bigbudget if you plan on doing a branding campaign that actually gets you anROI.
We’re assuming you don’t have millions of dollars to spend onadvertising that may or may not get a return for your local business. Andwe’re not here to throw a bunch of random ideas at you that may or may notwork.
TopAdvert.net
“REAL” MARKETINGThis book is about direct response marketing. That means that you have real,measurable results and are able to track your ROI down to the penny. That iswhat we call “real” marketing.
We’re here to show you a system that has worked for thousands of otherlocal businesses, and we’re extremely confident that, if you follow ourinstructions, it will work for you, too. This system has huge upside potentialand could double or triple your business in less than a year.
HIGH POTENTIAL—LOW RISKOne of the biggest benefits of the system you are about to learn is that it has avery high potential upside with very little risk. Again, you have the potentialto double or triple your business, however, your risk is only two or threethousand dollars to test out this method. That’s a pretty good risk/rewardratio! While we can’t guarantee that what we teach in this book is going towork 100 percent of the time, we will say that we have got it down to ascience where it works a large majority of the time. And because this systemis completely transparent and trackable, if for some reason it’s not workingfor you, you’ll be able to see very quickly that it’s not, and you will be able tocut your losses.
This is about getting real measurable results and scaling a business. It isnot about how to increase your business by 10 percent per year. Our goal is toarm you with tools that can potentially double or triple your business andgive you a consistent flow of new leads coming in the door.
LIMITED BUDGET? NO PROBLEM!This book is designed to help you grow your small to midsize local businesson a limited budget with very low risk and a very high potential upside. Themethod you are about to learn does not require huge investments in brandingor any other type of advertising. You don’t have to do billboards or TV. Ofcourse, if you are doing any of those things (and if they are working!), that’sgreat. If your prospects are already familiar with your name, it can only help.
However, none of that is necessary, and the goal of this book is to show
TopAdvert.net
you how. Whether you have zero employees or a thousand, you can use thissystem and test it on a very low budget, see real and measurable results, andscale up massively from there.
There are countless businesses whose number-one source of leads,income, and business are the exact strategies we’re going to share with you.And we are confident that if you follow our step-by-step instructions andimplement these strategies, there is a very high likelihood they will work foryou, too.
SEO LAST, NOT FIRSTOne of the first mistakes local businesses make is focusing on Search EngineOptimization (SEO) early. This is backwards, because Paid Search generatesnearly instantaneous results. So unless you want to wait around for sixmonths, start with Chapter 1 and get pay per click right. SEO comes inChapter 27 and it’s a powerful chapter.
Sound good? Great! Let’s dive in.
TopAdvert.net
I
Chapter 2
Search Engines Are the New YellowPages
by Talor Zamir
did not quite finish the story about my conversation with the lawyer Ishared with you in the last chapter. After venting to me for a while abouthis huge drop in leads and revenue and how ineffective his Yellow Pages
ads are, this was my response:
That’s because Google is the new Yellow Pages. Twenty years agoif someone needed a plumber or roofer or lawyer or whatever, theywould go to the Yellow Pages and find a business there. Thesedays, when was the last time you’ve even seen the Yellow Pages?Personally, I have not seen an actual physical Yellow Pages inyears.
The point is, if you need a plumber or a roofer or a dentist or a lawyer,you’re going to Google them. (Note: There are other search engines besidesGoogle, but for the purposes of this book, we will focus on Google because itis, by far, the dominant search engine.) As you are reading this, yourprospects are searching on Google for a business that does what you do.These are people in your local geographic area who need help with a problemyou can solve, and they need that help now.
Will they find you there?
TopAdvert.net
WHY THE YELLOW PAGES WAS (AND SEARCHENGINES ARE NOW) THE HIGHEST-QUALITYLEADSThe reason why Yellow Pages ads were one of the most effective forms ofadvertising for local businesses for so many years and why search engineshave now taken over as one of the most effective forms of advertising forlocal businesses is this:
These leads are from people that have already made a decision thatthey need a lawyer, dentist, chiropractor, roofer, plumber, or otherlocal business, and they are actively searching, finding, and callingyou.
This makes them a much higher-quality lead than just about any otherform of advertising.
If you have done any sort of sales or marketing, then you know thedifference between “cold calling” or “cold prospecting” someone and whensomeone searches, finds, and calls you. The difference is like night and day,both in the quality of the lead as well as in the conversion rate (turning theminto a paying client).
Think about it: If someone goes to Google and types in “Personal InjuryLawyer in Dallas,” that means they are probably looking to hire a personalinjury lawyer in Dallas right now.
You’re not going to get a higher-quality lead than that from any otherform of advertising!
In fact, the only lead that’s higher quality than a search engine lead is apersonal referral. If your friend says, “This is the best personal injury lawyerin the world, and you need to work with him,” that would be an extremelyhigh-quality lead which would most likely turn into a client.
However, you can’t get referrals if you don’t have enough clients to giveyou referrals! That’s why it’s so crucial for local businesses to constantly bebringing in high-quality leads that turn into clients for their business. Thenwhen you treat those clients right, that should turn into referrals, whichmeans new business that comes in for free. But remember, you would neverhave had that (free) referral business if you didn’t generate the initial lead
TopAdvert.net
from Google.Let’s say every 10 clients generate two referrals for you, but you only
have 150 clients. Then in this example you would only get 30 referrals. But ifyou had a constant stream of new high-quality leads coming into yourbusiness every day, and let’s say you got 500 clients from that, then in thisexample you would get 100 referrals (free clients).
As you can see, the referral machine works in tandem with the advertisingmachine, but you must feed the machine (your business) if you really want togrow it fast.
WHY TRADITIONAL FORMS OF MARKETINGARE LESS EFFECTIVEIt’s not only the Yellow Pages but also other traditional types of advertisingand marketing that are far less effective compared to Google advertising.Let’s look at the issues with some of the common sources local businessestry.
First, let’s look at billboards. Billboard companies will almost alwayslock you into a long-term contract, and it’s very expensive. They know thosebillboards will get stale, which is why they lock you into long-term contracts.The first month that you put up a billboard, you might get some strong, newexposure with people in the area. But by the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixthmonth, it’s the same people typically driving by that same billboard and theeffectiveness tends to drop.
Most local businesses are priced out of TV due to the high cost toproduce a good TV commercial and buy the airtime. There are some lawyers,cosmetic surgeons, and cosmetic dentists who can afford it, yet even thosethat can afford it are receiving an extremely low ROI. These days, manypeople are using DVRs to record shows and skip the commercialscompletely.
Similar things can be said about radio, newspaper, and magazineadvertising. You tend to reach the same audience over and over, so your adsgo stale; you often get locked into a long-term contract; and/or have a verylow ROI (if you are even able to track your ROI).
And here’s what you need to understand about the ROI: Let’s say you’re
TopAdvert.net
doing a billboard, and it costs $2,000 a month. Then a six-month contractmeans you are on the hook for $12,000 before you even know whether it’sworking and you’re getting an ROI or not! You’re locked into a $12,000commitment no matter what! Whereas the method we will teach you in thisbook is something you can test for a couple thousand dollars and, if it works,you can scale it up massively. And, if it doesn’t work, your risk was only acouple grand, and you are likely to at least get something out of it.
Remember, the best ROI and the highest-quality leads comefrom people who are actively searching for you.
Now, we don’t want to sound like we are totally bashing traditional formsof advertising and that you should completely avoid them. If you havebillboards or are running TV/radio ads already and people in your area arefamiliar with your name, then when they do a Google search, they’ll only bemore likely to click on your ad. So if you are doing billboard, TV, radio, etc.and are happy with it, then don’t stop! It’s only going to make what we aregoing to show you that much more effective.
TopAdvert.net
Contents
Preface
CHAPTER 1
Why 95 Percent of Local Businesses Are FailingMiserably with Their Marketing by Talor ZamirWhat They Don’t Teach You in Law (or Any Professional) SchoolWhat You Will Not Learn in This Book“Real” MarketingHigh Potential—Low RiskLimited Budget? No Problem!SEO Last, Not First
CHAPTER 2
Search Engines Are the New Yellow Pages by Talor ZamirWhy the Yellow Pages Was (and Search Engines Are Now) the
Highest-Quality LeadsWhy Traditional Forms of Marketing Are Less Effective
CHAPTER 3
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vs. Pay Per Click(PPC) by Talor ZamirThe Differences between SEO and PPC
TopAdvert.net
The Advantages PPC Has Over SEOWhy PPC Will Be a Top Source of Leads for a Long Time
CHAPTER 4
The Dirty Little Secret Ad Agencies Are Afraid You’llFind Out by Talor ZamirAd Agency MathThe Number-One Thing Local Business Owners Want
CHAPTER 5
The 80/20 Rule: It’s Not What You Think, But It’sReally Profitable! by Perry MarshallBack When I Thought I Understood 80/2080/20 Applies to Nearly Everything You Can Measure in a Business80/20 Isn’t Just Two Groups, “The 80” and “The 20”There’s an 80/20 Inside Every 80/20!Overlay Multiple 80/20s—and Double Your Mojo!Perfectionism Can Get in Your Way!The Myth of the Long TailSome 80/20 Rules of Thumb
CHAPTER 6
Google AdWords: The Greatest Innovation inAdvertising History by Talor ZamirA Dramatic ShiftNot as Easy as It Used to Be!
CHAPTER 7
The Top Four Reasons Local Businesses Fail UsingGoogle AdWords by Talor Zamir1. No Landing Page or Awful Landing Page
TopAdvert.net
2. Horrible Ads with Low Clickthrough Rates3. No Conversion or Call Tracking4. Poor Campaign StructureAdWords Aren’t Perfect, But
CHAPTER 8
The Most Important Piece of the Puzzle—YourLanding Page by Talor ZamirThe Importance of ConversionWhy Your Landing Page Will Convert Better Than Your WebsiteOnline ADD and One-Decision MarketingThe Goal of Your Landing Page
CHAPTER 9
How to Make Landing Pages that Convert Curiosity toCash by Talor ZamirExample of a Dreadful Landing PageThe Local Business Landing Page TemplateWhat You Should Avoid on Your Landing Page
CHAPTER 10
Increase Your Conversion and Dominate Your Nichewith a Killer USP! by Bryan ToddWhat Is a USP?The Six Essential Elements of a Power USP
CHAPTER 11
Why You Must Track All Conversions on YourLanding Page by Talor ZamirMost Local Business Advertisers Are Flying Blind
TopAdvert.net
Track Conversions with Dynamic Call TrackingGetting Started with Dynamic Call TrackingTrue Campaign Optimization
CHAPTER 12
How to Find the Best Keywords to Start With by TalorZamirWhat Would Your Ideal Client Type into Google?The Secret to Keyword Research for Local Businesses
CHAPTER 13
Advanced Keyword Research by Talor ZamirUsing Google’s Free Keyword PlannerHow to Spy on Your Competitors to Find the Best Targeted Keywords
CHAPTER 14
Keyword Matching Options: Dodging Google’sStupidity Tax by Talor ZamirUnderstanding Keyword Match TypesShortcut for Generating Keyword Match TypesNegative Keywords are Really Important!
CHAPTER 15
Breaking Out Your Keywords into Ad Groups by TalorZamirThe Psychology of SearchStructuring Your AdWords Account for Success
CHAPTER 16
Build Your Google AdWords Campaign from Scratchby Talor Zamir
TopAdvert.net
Warning: Do Not Use AdWords Express!Choosing the Right Campaign SettingsAdvanced SettingsCreating Your Ad Groups
CHAPTER 17
Bidding Strategies Make or Break You by Talor ZamirBidding for the Top Three PositionsSetting Your Initial BidsChanging Your Bids
CHAPTER 18
The Ultimate Local Google Ad by Perry Marshall and TalorZamirAd CopyAd ExtensionsA Good Ad vs. a Bad AdYour Ad Copy
CHAPTER 19
Ad Extensions: Twice the Real Estate for No ExtraMoney by Talor ZamirLocation ExtensionsCall ExtensionsSitelink ExtensionsCallout ExtensionsReview Extensions
CHAPTER 20
Split-Testing Your Ads: The Key to Continuous
TopAdvert.net
Improvement by Talor ZamirThe World’s Greatest Market Research EngineSplit-Test with EaseSplit-Testing Is Not Just About Clickthrough RatesSix Things You Can Test in Your AdsAdding Additional Ads to Your Ad GroupsUnlimited Possibilities
CHAPTER 21
Conversion Tracking by Talor ZamirThe Most Important Metric: Cost Per ConversionThree Things to Watch When Optimizing Your CampaignSetting Up Conversion Tracking
CHAPTER 22
Mobile Search Advertising: The Future of LocalBusiness Marketing by Talor ZamirMobile Ad PositioningAdjusting Your Mobile BidsCreating Mobile Optimized Ads
CHAPTER 23
Scale Up Your Lead Flow Once You Have a Winner byTalor ZamirBing AdsAdding More KeywordsAdvertising 24/7Expand Your Geo-Targeting
CHAPTER 24
TopAdvert.net
Remarketing: A Powerful Strategy Every LocalBusiness Should Use by Talor ZamirGetting Started with Google RemarketingCreating Remarketing AdsSegmenting for SuccessExpanding Your Remarketing Beyond AdWords
CHAPTER 25
Convert Those Leads into Paying Clients and Profits byPerry Marshall and Talor ZamirThe X-FactorSix Tips for Converting Leads into ClientsWhat Two of Our Most Successful Clients Have in Common
CHAPTER 26
What to Look for When Hiring a PPC Agency by AdamKreitmanSix Questions to Ask Before Hiring a PPC Agency and WhyHiring an Agency Does Not Mean You Are Off the Hook!
CHAPTER 27
Local SEO Techniques by Richard JacobsMeasuring Success in Local SEODiagnosing SEO Problems Using Your Website’s StructureSEO Tactics to Build Your Website’s TrafficLocal SEO is Very Similar to National SEOGetting “Enough” Favorable Reviews in Google MapsA Final Word of Caution
CHAPTER 28
TopAdvert.net
Facebook and Facebook Ads for Local Businesses byKeith KranceFacebook Doesn’t Want to Be CoolThe Five-Step Facebook Fast Start FormulaStep 1: Publish “Facebook-Friendly” Goodwill ContentStep 2: Target Audience ResearchStep 3: Publish and Boost Your Facebook PostStep 4: Repeat with Conversion-Focused CampaignStep 5: Analyze and OptimizeThe Facebook Fast Start Review
CHAPTER 29
Take Action—and Get Started!80/20: Top Strategies to Implement Now
CONCLUSION
A Final Call to ArmsBefore We Go
About the Authors
Index
TopAdvert.net
This is an excerpt from Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing by PerryMarshall and Talor Zamir, Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing,©2016, Entrepreneur Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced withpermission of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
TopAdvert.net
